Avatar

Avatar | Science Fiction | rated PG-13 (A,V,L) | starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez | written & directed by James Cameron | 2:42 mins

On a fantastic, jungle alien planet called Pandora, paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Terminator Salvation) enlists in the Avatar program when his scientist twin brother is killed. This technology will allow him to download his consciousness into a body genetically engineered to replicate the Na’vi – the large, blue inhabitants of Pandora who exist peacefully communing with the planet. While a scientist (Sigourney Weaver) and military Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) argue about how to handle the inhabitants, Sully infiltrates the tribe to learn their culture and push them to move off their land before the military moves in and destroys it for the difficult to obtain natural resource underneath – unobtainium. Sully finds his alliances challenged as he falls for a Na’vi woman (Zoe Saldana) who teaches him how truly their world’s resources are interconnected and what might be lost if it is destroyed.

Rolled into theaters on an avalanche of hype, Avatar is James Cameron’s first film since Titanic over 10 years ago. Apparently what he’s been doing since is constructing his own alien world and inventing the 3D technology to bring it to life with the goal of creating a uniquely theatrical experience. Avatar is a science fiction epic. A geekgasmic orgy of aliens, spaceships, mechs and dragons wrapped around a thick environmentalist message. This is a review of the 2D version, as out of the theater is where movies spend 99.9% of their lives.

The movie is an undeniable technical triumph and, to state the obvious when speaking of Cameron, it looks great. Cameron brings Pandora to life with sweeping panoramic views of lush, colorful landscapes. He takes us to the dizzying heights of the Banshee nest and the crater of the Tree of Souls. It is a dazzling alien landscape in which the ground lights up where you step, plants snap shut with a touch and mountains float in the sky. The Na’vi themselves are also unique, the most interesting detail being their ponytail, which is apparently a part of their body and can jack them in, bond, with any form of nature. An animal, a tree, a lover. Cameron really loves nature. And it’s here where we run headfirst into the brick wall of the problem: the story.

But first, a side note about Cameron’s creation of Pandora. It’s just a jungle world, because nature is the theme of the movie, but when I think of an impressive universe creation I think of a society built from the ground up. The social class structure. The religion. The government and politics. A world with a bible of rules and details for the fans to ponder over. The likes of which you’d see on science fiction series from Battlestar Galactica to the animated Futurama. Cameron simply gives us a jungle world and models its population after Native American culture.

Back to the story. Cameron’s script is the wet blanket that drags the whole movie down. As he did in Titanic, nearly all of the dialog is a purely theatrical series of one-liners that are either abominably cliche or sound like catch-phrases. You’ll get to hear classics like “the enemy is out there” and (after getting shot) “this is going to ruin my day”. And the piece de resistance, the stupidity of the entire movie is perfectly exemplified by it’s key McGuffin – unobtainium. Really? Are we children? There is a thread of down-talking condescension that runs all through Avatar that got under my skin.

Once Jake infiltrates the Na’vi tribe there is probably a good hour as he walks through landscapes, learns their culture and tests his skills in their ceremonial trials to become a Na’vi man. Potentially more interesting sci-fi storypoints about the discovery or colonization of Pandora are shuttled off the page to bathe in the jungle. From the beginning Neytiri (Saldana) is unnecessarily mean to Jake and the two leads proceed to fall in love in that magical way that forces them too because that’s what the plot requires. She takes us further into the jungle and with that all of the movie’s science fiction magic, it’s visual glitz and glamour, get shot full of holes as Avatar becomes a message movie above all else. While I am all about movies as morality plays and respect the heck out of Cameron’s attempt at turning pro-environmentalism into a tangible scientific story there is a subtlety required to a message movie that Cameron can’t get his arms around. It’s double-entendres are obvious, it’s metaphors only work on one level. The movie’s we-are-all-connected theme is driven into our heads with all the finesse of a sledge-hammer. It’s an aggressive, condescending style that will probably draw anger more than it will win converts.

Cameron’s portrayal of all the characters in this environmental lecture is cartoonishly black and white. The natives are perfectly, purely good, the military mercenaries purely evil. Lang’s Quaritch is borderline psychotic in his random hatred of the natives. As if he just wants them dead because he loves the smell of burning blue flesh with his morning coffee. Ribisi’s spouts Na’vi racism for the sake of unobtainium and the generically evil goal of having a good quarter without any explanation as to what the heck Unobtainium actually does. A conflict on this side would have made the film a bit less obnoxiously one-dimensional. For his part Sully is the typical movie jarhead American gone native we’ve seen before (with Worthington giving it all of the year’s most wooden lead performance). Cameron draws general themes from Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas, barely re-casting them, mixed with Ferngully: the Last Rainforest – which was bad enough the first time.

James Cameron can conduct a rousing action sequence in his sleep and after the length of another movie, Avatar goes out with a big raucous bang that brings all of it’s epic sci-fi geektastic parts to a booming finale battle. It’s the kind of ending that had the characters been properly developed and the story were attempting to draw us in instead of preach to us, it’d have had me on the edge of my seat cheering the sceen.

Avatar is a watchable piece of eye-candy. A movie fueled on pure emotion, but limited intelligence and creativity where the story and characters are service to the special effects and the special effects service to a message movie. If you’re a more liberal, emotional movie-goer that doesn’t mind the sacrifice and already buys into it’s clubbing message, you’ll love it. But others will find Cameron’s opus torrentially dull, utterly shallow and obnoxiously preachy.