Avatar

2009

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver

Plot: A paraplegic marine dispatched to the planet Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

The Classic Formula with a $400 Million Pricetag

by C. True

First, lets tackle the obvious complaint most people will have with Avatar, and that is a story-line that is completely obvious from about 15 minutes in and then lasts another 2 hours and 25 minutes. Looking back James Cameron has done some truly original storytelling and writing with such creative projects as The Terminator, The Abyss and even True Lies which is one of my favorite no-brainer actionpackages because of the unexpected plot developments Cameron throws in to a traditionally super-formulaic genre. Then you have Titanic, which wasn't a bad film but really lacked much innovation in terms of storytelling. Unfortunately, Avatar falls into the Titanic category of Cameron works. The native humanoid population on Pandora, the Na'vi worship nature and commune (directly) with their planet and think us humans (read Americans) are a bunch of insane blundering assholes come to destroy their planet. And we have! I wonder if our protagonist, who is sent to spy on the Na'vi and find some leverage to get them to leave their land so that the corporation he works for can finally mine that, wait for it, Unobtainium, will start to sympathize with these peaceful people? The plus side to Avatar is that James Cameron and his editing crew must have had a meticulous timeline of how many minutes were going to be spent on each plot device envisioned in this giant classic formula. For instance the romance in the film develops organically with only one, maybe two, scenes that directly go towards establishing the romantic bond between the two main characters. And there isn't any deliberation, she shows him amazing things in her world, when its time to chose a mate he obviously chooses her, and she says she's already chosen him as well. Simple, not too short, not too long. Time for battle? Lets stick to the standard beginning 1/3 the battle losing, 1/3 in flux and then the final 1/3 where... well you can guess. The whole movies works this way with everything given the exact amount of time we need to get the jist of what's happening and never once lingering too long on developments that are obvious. In the end the 2 hours and 40 minutes flies by. But of course the visual effects have a large hand in making us forget that we already know what is going to happen.

And they are pretty good special effects. I was skeptical, not overly impressed with Cameron's first pictures and I remained skeptical through the beginning of the film and some of the first creatures. But the Na'vi look pretty good, especially in scenes where humans are also present, something I thought their should have been more of, especially during big fight scenes in the end. The alien jungle is full of hostile creatures, some more original and impressive than others. Close-up shots show the level of detail that really went into these creatures and assuaged some of the cheesy gut-reactions I had initally. The Omaticaya's ritual to become a man involves picking your flying mount (size of mounts definitely matters) and this sequence is done really well and its no wonder why our protagonist would rather stay in this alien world where he can fly through floating mountains on a creature he controls completely with his mind than go home where he is an ex-marine paraplegic. Eventually Cameron gets you to immerse yourself in his alien world and you stop noticing things looking familiar or new, impressive or hokey, and you just go with it. This is a good thing because the battle sequences toward the end of the film are impressive enough without you trying to look at the detail of everything.

Finally, if you're seeing it in the theater the ultimate question I've saved for last: to 3-D or not to 3-D? I did 3-D (because my 2-D vote was overruled) and personally I found it a little jarring, though over time I finally adjusted and stopped feeling like everything on the screen popped out at me. Then again I found it jarring because it the 3-D technology was so impressive, and really sold your brain on the visual illusion. Importantly, I don't think the movie HAS to be seen in 3-D (unlike Final Destination 3 in 3-D which Mr. Moneybags and I found to be a little lacking when we watched it in 2-D at home) so if you don't think you'll like 3-D don't feel like you'll be missing anything critical by seeing the 2-D version. The one major problem for me with the 3-D experience is that it really forces your eye where to look, and when I found myself trying to resist this (or generally confused as to where I was supposed to be looking) things looked weird and out of focus. But there were some small 3-D effects like falling ash and dust that were really pretty beautifully done and added to the visual experience of the film. So I'll give the cop-out answer that if you think you'll like the 3-D version you will, and if you don't think you will then you probably wont. If you're in torn, go 3-D; I was sold the gimmick really can add something when done right.