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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Avatar (2009)
Posted on 6:05 PM by Paolo
'Avatar' Review
By Paolo Sardinas
Lets face it, James Cameron has come a long way since his days working as a truck driver. The man has given us some of the most iconic films and characters of the 20th century. As cheesy as the first and second Alien might have been, they were no less innovators of a time where movies were evolving into the giant spectacles that they are now. T2 was pure fun and enjoyment at its best, True Lies, while not perfect, was definitely entertaining, and Titanic (as overrated as a I think it is) got him his first Oscar win and made Leonardo DiCaprio a star. His latest endeavor, Avatar, has been in the works for about a decade, if not longer, now. While its definitely a breathtaking film, visually, it is hardly as innovative as his other films were.
Avatar's dialogue, most of which is a tad bit cheesy, its unstructured story line, and weak performances, though Sigourney Weaver still proves she can kick ass, are hardly finely tuned. But lets be frank, that's not what we are going to see it for. We are going to see it for the stunning visuals that will blow your mind and the stunning world that was created using tons of computers. Cameron's films have always been visual spectacles and Avatar's are nothing less than beautiful. In fact it seems like that's all he focused on. For such a brilliantly striking film, you would think that the story would be a bit more engrossing. Instead its two and a half hours of whatever mumbo jumbo came to mind. It seems that Mr. Cameron spent so much time perfecting the light shades on Pandora's trees that he forgot to focus on everything else.
The story takes place in the future. Obviously. It follows Jake Sulley (Sam Worthington), a Marin hero who is paralyzed from the waist down. Why? No one knows as Cameron "forgot" to delve more into the characters back stories. The film is set on Pandora, a planet where Sulley has just been chosen to become an avatar. No not the little picture defaults on your social networks. The avatars are genetically engineered look a likes of the planets indigenous Na'vi people. These creatures are about six or seven feet tall, have giant yellow mountain lion eyes, long braids which, when connected to something, give them some control over animals and allow them to talk to a tree. Now the real plot is that the military post which is based on the planet is hoping to mine out a rare mineral which will is their problem solver for some energy problems back home.
Jake takes control over one of these avatars and goes out deep into the planet where he meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who saves him in the forest one day. The two take a liking into each other and Jake becomes here soldier in training. Jake shoots arrows, rides giant gryphon like creatures, fights of a horde of weird looking dog things, and eventually is accepted amongst the indigenous people. Cameron, using his natural talent, creates this whole fairy tale like world where every one is one with the nature and talk to some god hiding amongst the trees and plants. They all live under a big tree which happens to be sitting atop of the largest deposit of government wanted minerals. Jake makes the decision to help the Na'vi fight off against the "sky people" and save their land.
The film's narrative is messy to say the least. It jumps in without any explanation as to what the hell's going on and doesn't really introduce us to any of characters. They all could have used some dimension to them. Each one has their own personal traits and have could have been characters which were really special or just plain dumb. They happened to be the later. The cast does a "so-so" job of "acting". Cameron's dialogue doesn't help out either since its filled with plenty of cheesy lines and scenes that feel like they go on forever and some which don't go on long enough. Sigourney Weaver definitely delivers the movie's finest performance and proves that she is still a great actress who can do anything.
Its not just the one dimensionality of the characters thats bothersome, its the whole fact that there was so much that they could have done with them. There is a huge mythology that could of been explored but was sadly left out. The film is choppily edited and quickly put together, even though it rolls on and on for about two and a half hours. The blue skinned creatures are entertaining with their snarling but after the first thirty minutes, the accents and "plug it in" braids just become stupid and tiring. It doesn't explain anything and even after they destroy the Na'vi's giant living tree the movie still goes on for another twenty minutes of visual orgasms and joys. The thid act gets all Dances With Wolves on us and has no real conclusion.
James Cameron proves, once again, that he is the master of visual joy rides. But his so called "masterpiece" is nothing more than visual eye candy. Its performances are light and weak and its narrative shortcomings are far to obvious. If you're lucky you should catch the film in its 3D format. This way you are able to truly enjoy Cameron's enticing visuals. As for the story, well, I wish the same could be said.
Grade: C+
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