Avatar (Movie Review)

Movie Review
Avatar
2009
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver
Directed by: James Cameron

Every decade or so we get a film that revolutionizes the movie industry and causes a shift in both movie development and audience expectations. The jury is still out on whether James Cameron’s Avatar has done just that. Avatar, on the IMAX 3D is an experience on the level of watching the Super Bowl live. Without the massive screen and 3D effects, it’s a good movie and nothing more. The thing is that its run on IMAX screens will last for only a few weeks while the home video market is still a far way from adopting affordable 3D movie watching that will blow people away. This movie will not want people to apply for a second mortgage on their homes to invest in the technology.

As revolutionary as the technology used to film the movie, the story is very formulaic. Earth has been mined of nearly all its resources. However, thanks to advances in space travel, multinational corporations have been able to colonize other planets and harvest their resources. On the planet Pandora, the black gold of the beautiful planet is unobtainum (clever play on words there). The RDA Corporation is able to make millions on only a kilogram of the stuff. The only problem is they meet with fierce resistance from an indigenous group, the Na’vi. The Na’vi are part humanoid in that their bodies somewhat have the shapes of humans. They’re much taller than humans by a couple of feet and have blue skin. They also have tails that have connections at the end of it that can be hooked into other animals or trees. Once these connections are made, the Na’vi develop a close bond with the things they are connected to, which gives them access to information about the land or can make animals their loyal friends.

The RDA has had enough with the Na’vi resistance. Although they have an entire military backing them up, they at first try diplomatic means to convince the Na’vi to relocate from some of the larger unobtainium deposits. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) comes up with a program that allows humans to take control of cloned Na’vi bodies. Augustine takes her work very seriously but does so in the name of science and discovery, rather than as a way to exploit and conquer the Na’vi. She does a good job at using the RDA’s greed to her advantage.

Enter Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paralyzed Marine given a second chance. His twin brother was part of the Avatar program but died suddenly. Since the Na’vi Avatars are linked through genomes, the only way the program can continue to use the costly Avatar is by giving control to the body to an inexperienced and volatile “jarhead” (Augustine’s unflattering word for him). During an exploration mission, Sully gets lost from Augustine and scientist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) after an attack by a enormous animal that resembles a giant rhino who probably thinks you could never take enough steroids. Sully can’t find his way back to the base before dark and is being hunted by wild animals during the night. He’s saved by a Na’vi named Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña). At first she dislikes him but she realizes that the flora of Pandora have a special bond with Sully. She takes him to her village where, with much hesitation, the Na’vi agree to take Sully in as a way of showing the Na’vi life to the human species. Jake spends much of his time back and forth between the Na’vi and the RDA base. Sully originally hatches a plan with the military to help them gain intelligence to use against the Na’vi in the event of a battle. However, as time passes and Sully spends more time with the Na’vi as one of them, he begins to question whether he’s doing the right thing.

The weird thing about this movie is that it’s good despite the fact that not only is it predictable but it “borrows” elements from other movies and even video games. Without thinking too hard about it, I found references to The Matrix, Final Fantasy, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, and others. It doesn’t feel original and its cowboys-versus-Indians plot has been in movies for decades. There is little substance to the movie. Although, with the luxury of a 160+ minute running time, the story is told so well that there is a deep emotional connection is built between the Na’vi and the audience. The film is able to tug at one’s heartstrings. Even though they don’t look or act as cute E.T., the Na’vi become very endearing.

Although, as the long running time helps the story develop; it also hurts the second half of the movie. There is so much done during a climactic scene between the military force and the village of the Sully’s Na’vis about two-thirds of the way through the movie that everything that happens afterwards doesn’t feel as important. Even the final battle between the Na’vi and the humans at the end of the movie, while visually stunning, doesn’t feel as epic as some of the earlier conflicts. The pacing of the entire movie feels a bit off. The climax of the movie should be at the end rather than somewhere in the middle. It deflates the audience which a long movie like Avatar has trouble recovering from.

Despite all this, Avatar is good. The acting is fine with nobody underperforming (although there are no breakout performances either). The action is excellent, especially some of the more intense scenes; probably the best of 2009. Cameron’s fake Pandora is gorgeous and a site to behold. There are some scenes where the special effects look really bad but it’s forgivable. The story is really interesting and holds the audience. Everything happens like it’s intended to; you like the Na’vi, you hate the humans and you don’t know how the movie is going to end. The movie successfully keeps the audience entertained for the near three hour runtime. Considering that it took me three paragraphs to explain just the basics of the story tells you just how much there is to the film. The drawback though is that even though it has enough content in the movie to seem epic on paper, it feels only a little above what you’d expect to see from a big-budgeted action flick. The movie still needs to rely on explosions and special effects to keep the audience interested.

Watching the movie in 3D makes the experience but it’s not necessary. Unlike most 3D movies, Cameron doesn’t do any stupid gimmicks like constantly having object go towards the camera. There are some nice water droplet effects and other neat things but the 3D experience isn’t rammed down the audiences’ throat. It’s not perfect though as there are some scenes where everything is lacking depth and it becomes really noticeable that the 3D effect is being created using multiple layers of photography similar to what a Viewmaster disc does (for those old enough to remember them). Still, even with these slight imperfections, it’s still fun to watch in 3D. If you can’t watch it in 3D, it’s still enjoyable as the focus is showing off the story rather than playing towards the 3D concept.

James Cameron’s Avatar is a good movie but not much more. Rarely do movies that go well beyond two hours feel anything but amazing or awful. However, this movie is middle of the road. On the IMAX 3D, it is an experience that one should treat themselves to but if that option is not available or too expensive, it’s a perfectly fine movie; though there are better movies out there in the same genre. So unless 3D technology becomes real cheap in the home market soon, Avatar won’t have much of a life beyond the cinemas.

☆☆☆