Reeling: Avatar
Posted on 20. Dec, 2009 by Simon in Film, Reeling
I won’t beat around the bush; as far as movies go, Avatar is not a very good one. It is however, one you should watch.
The essential question I found myself asking after seeing Avatar was, is a cliche actually a cliche the very first time you see it? Well, that and what’s the last movie Michelle Rodriguez was in where she didn’t wield a gun?
I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say if you’ve seen a big-budget movie before, you’ll be familiar with the formulaic plot of Avatar. There’s the environmental bent (including a giant money grubbing militant corporation as the antagonist). There’s the warrior with a heart of gold (Sam Worthington) who starts out with an ulterior motive but falls in love with those he was sent to destroy. There’s even some Lord of the Rings vibe during the frenetic climactic battle scene, including a rallying of disparate forces to form an underdog army. I kept expecting someone to scream “FOR PANDORAAAA!” but it never happened.
Beyond the actual story, even plot devices seem retread. Worthington’s on-and-off voiceovers take the form of video log entries used to explain any jumps in the action. The only thing I got from these scenes is that if you want to make someone seem unintimidating, force them to film a vBlog. I felt like I was watching lonelygirl15, even though I only know Sam Worthington as an action movie character.
Where Cameron falls short in story telling and directing however, he really, really succeeds in putting on a show. As far as sci-fi experiences go, Avatar is much closer to Back to the Future the Ride than it is to Back to the Future the movie. This is a disorienting thing.
Although you’ll recognize every part of Avatar as taken from some other contrived Hollywood fare, what’s amazing is that you have never seen it presented in the way Cameron has done. Producing the film purely in 3D and mixing CGI seamlessly with human actors, you can’t help but be drawn into the minutiae of the world Avatar creates.
Avatar: $300-million. Cameron's face: Priceless
Obviously there is some gimmickry — holographic computer screens swivel towards you and rocks fly off the screen, but where Cameron really breaks new ground is in the nuance of his 3D technology. You are transfixed by the detail in Worthington’s eyelashes during closeups, and when characters stop to marvel at the beauty of alien nature, you can’t help but genuinely marvel along with them. The movement and density of Avatar’s imaginary world is so engrossing it essentially makes the story moot.
I know it’s not de riguer to quote other reviews in your review, but frankly the New Yorker’s David Denby said it better than I ever could about this film. Keep in mind this is the same David Denby who literally wrote the book on snarkiness.
“But let’s not dwell on the sentimentality of Cameron’s notion of aboriginal life—the movie is striking enough to make it irrelevant. Nor is there much point in lingering over the irony that this anti-technology message is delivered by an example of advanced technology that cost nearly two hundred and fifty million dollars to produce; or that this anti-imperialist spectacle will invade every available theatre in the world. Relish, instead, the pterodactyls, or the flying velociraptors, or whatever they are—large beaky beasts, green with yellow reptile patches—and the bright-red flying monster with jaws that could snap an oak.”
From someone who makes a living being ironic, the literal interpretation of this quote is perhaps the greatest compliment a critic could pay to Cameron’s on-screen opus. We live in an era when visual stimuli is so entrenched in our culture that we forget movies are actually a seeing experience. Because audiences are so hard to impress however, storytelling has become essential to providing entertainment. Just having technicolor or an audio track aren’t novel enough to sate us anymore. Even the CGI of a film like 2012 barely elicits a yawn.
In this regard, Cameron has brought movies back to a golden era — when new, exciting parts of our imagination suddenly seem ready to be realized on the big screen. For this and this alone, Avatar is a must see movie.
rehana
Dec 20th, 2009
soooo good!! I watched it on saturday and I am def going to go see it again with my dad even if it puts me 31 dollars in the hole.