A Thomas Bess review of:
Directed By: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, Wes Studi
Run Time: 162 eye pleasing, soapbox lovin’ minutes.
Ok, so admittedly I’m a little late to the party on this one, but gimme a little credit for just showing up, as this is a party I didn’t really wanna attend in the first place. Yeah, yeah, call me a cinematic Luddite and cut a corner off my geek card, but I wasn’t intrigued by the first trailer for Avatar. The second proved a little more interesting, but because it appealed more to my innate love of kick ass space monsters than anything else. After throwing my thirteen dollars to James Cameron’s latest pile of billions, I can safely say that while it most assuredly lives up to the visual hype, as an actual story it leaves a helluva lot to be desired.
In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last several months, here’s the plot, Cliff’s Notes style. Some time in Earth’s not too distant future, a whole gaggle of Space Marines have come to the moon Pandora in search of an element called Unobtainium (Apparently a real word. Yeah, I was shocked too.) that’s worth infinity billion dollars per ounce. Only problem is, Pandora’s occupied by a race of blue-skinned, ten foot tall, vaguely cat-like creatures called the Na’vi. They’re a generally peaceful bunch, but of course our Space Marines aren’t known for their subtlety and instead of just politely asking or bartering for the Unobtainium (man, I feel silly typing that) they go in all guns a’ blazin and the Na’vi respond with giant spears, arrows and other such wickedness. This stalemate goes on for a while before science comes to the rescue in the form of the Avatar program in which a human mind is implanted into a Na’vi body and sent into the populace for knowledge gathering purposes. Such is the fate of our hero Jake Sully (Worthington) a paraplegic soldier who’s initially happy just to walk again. Along with scientists Dr. Grace Augustine (Weaver) and Norm Spellman (MooreSaldana) who, after some balking teaches him how to live like a big blue native. Things are going great ’til a kill hungry Colonel (Lang) decides Jake’s information is just what he needs to wipe out the Na’vi and amasses an army bent on mowing the locals down. By this point Jake and anyone else who has displayed anything like a conscience have sided with the Na’vi and it leads nicely into a final battle with the fate of Pandora and its occupants at stake.
What’s good? Simply put, Pandora may be the prettiest, most well designed sandbox I’ve ever seen. Plants, animals, atmospheric effects, any and every detail you can think of, Cameron’s got it covered so thoroughly as to come off as borderline obsessive. In this case that’s definitely not a bad thing as I could’ve spent several hours just following the camera as it chronicled the life of the flora and fauna, Planet Earth (Pandora Moon?) style. Along similar lines the creature design is exemplary. We’ve got giant hammerheaded rhinos, a pack of black-skinned, reptilian-ish hyenas, iguana / bird hybrids and a tiger striped monstrosity that looks to be kissing cousins with Rodan. Any one of these creatures would have been perfect fodder for a plethora of monster movies and it’s a shame we didn’t get to spend more time with them. On the more human side of things, the cast is downright huge, but they all do good work with what they’re given, especially Moore and Ribisi as the geeky pal and unscrupulous developer / business tycoon respectively. Also worth noting, Michelle Rodriguez is doing her typical tough chick gimmick here, but for whatever reason it didn’t irritate me nearly as much this time out, so kudos for that. Finally, at two and a half plus hours, it would be real easy for something like Avatar to drag, but it moves along at a pretty good clip, mostly thanks to those breathtaking visuals, I’d wager.
What’s not good? Let me put it this way. It’s not that anything in this flick is out and out terrible, but with special effects good enough to melt your eyeballs with joy you’d expect there to be a story to match and sadly, this is where Avatar falls flat. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking the script draws from The Matrix, Dances with Wolves and Ferngully in equal measure (ed note: don’t forget Pocahontas). Hell, if you’re watching it without the 3D you’ll probably spend most of your time trying to come up with a comprehensive list of where you’ve seen all this before. Again, it’s not so much bad as it is “meh” and that strikes me as even worse somehow. Oh, and for those of you who don’t like a movie with a message, keep a very safe distance. While it didn’t come off nearly as heavy handed as I had worried, it is for the most part delightfully unsubtle and there are a handful of lines that’ll have your eyes rolling. Similarly, there’s a decided streak of anti-militarism running through the whole flick and while I’m not of the mindset that everyone’s car needs to sport a yellow ribbon magnet, I do think we should support the folks on the ground. Alas, Avatar shows a certain contempt for anyone and anything not directly aligned with the Na’vi, which is sort of a ironic for a story that professes to be all about understanding and tolerance.
Should you see it? By now, you probably already have, but if you haven’t and are interested I would say yeah, just make sure you shill out the extra cash to experience it in 3D and perhaps even IMAX. But if you want the same story delivered with more impact and less glitz, just rent yourself a copy of District Nine and try not to feel too bad about being a human.
Til next time, always remember that the calls are coming from inside the house.
Tom Bess has sideburns that are so big they might be considered a beard shaving accident from afar. He blames his current mental state on Stephen King, Mike Nelson, Seth McFarlane and Vince McMahon but bears them no ill will. He passes his time writing movie reviews, but will flee the interwebs forever as soon as Allison Mack starts returning his calls.
