Movie: Avatar Is It All That?

Written By: mike on September 23, 2010 No Comment

Finally back to the big screen, titan director/producer James Cameron (Terminator 2, Titanic), has released the sci-fi epic Avatar. Set far in the future on the planet Pandora, an evil corporation is trying to eradicate the humanoid tribe of ‘Navis’ off the land to recover the planets invaluable minerals. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) arrives on Pandora a paraplegic marine who has been recruited to mentally ‘drive’ a clone body of the planets indigenous tribe. In the hopes of having his spine and legs cured, he infiltrates the tribe and gathers intelligence for the corporation’s private military forces. However, Jake begins embracing the tribe’s culture and even falls for Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and ultimately becomes allied with the Navi. When their impatience boils, the Private Military wants to move in and attack while Jake sides with the Navi pitting the human military against the tribe in full scale war.
The expansiveness of the film, the detail and mystifying beauty of the world that is Pandora is worth the viewing alone. Every visual facet of the film feels incredibly thought out, from the nocturnal illuminated vegetation, to the sunrise kissed landscapes, even to the mechanics of the humans’ weaponry and vehicles; with such conceptualization for an alien world, it explains where Cameron has been for the past 12 years since Titanic. The special effects, along with Cameron’s acclaimed breakthrough innovations of filming for Avatar are impressive. The computer generated images are very convincing, and don’t break focus on the story.
Sigourney Weaver reprises her career origin in sci-fi roles as Dr. Grace Augustine. While she is the head of the Navi ‘clone drivers’ research, her exchanges with Sully throughout the film are quite witty. Since Augustine sees Sully as shallow jarhead and the last person capable for the job and build a great character dynamic as they get to know each other and work with the Navi.
The story however is nothing that can’t be attributed to memorable movie storylines. While it doesn’t run as cliché, audiences may find themselves muttering under their breath the resemblance to ‘an epic FernGully: The Last Rainforest’ or ‘a futuristic Dances With Wolves’. Avatar really comes across as a shameless conglomeration of various film plots that movie fans will identify. However this isn’t to imply the story is bad, but with critics’ reviews being as epic as they claim the movie to be, the concept of the story isn’t that impressive. The film in its entirety tries to weave in a message of environment preservation throughout, demonstrated by the imperialist greedy corporation trying to destroy everything peaceful for financial gain. It’s a trite message that film isn’t overt or preachy with it.
Overall, Avatar offers impressive battle sequences, characters worth rooting for, and doesn’t bore in its length of three hours. It is truly the next film in the epic genre for this year. It can be your Lord of the Rings for 2009.