Avatar (2009)

Avatar

Written and Directed by James Cameron

 

            Well, here’s an interesting movie.  It’s the phenomenon that has captured the imagination of the world.  I know you have many questions.  Is it all it’s cracked up to be?  Is it even good?  What cereal is the best?  Well I have answers for all of those questions, and many more.  Read on, young journeymen, read on.

            There is one thing I really liked about Avatar and one thing that I really didn’t like.  What I didn’t like was the story.  What I did like was the visuals.  Here’s what the story was: A paralyzed marine named Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington, or the good robot, and only good part, from Terminator: Salvation) is forced to infiltrate the natives (known as the Na’vi on the distant moon-planet known as Pandora with missions to destroy their race.  Jake does this by using an Avatar.  Basically, his brain gets plugged into the body of a creature whose DNA has been combined with his to create his own unique Avatar.  Of course, Jake is the only person that the natives will let join their family.  Upon becoming a part of the Na’vi, Jake falls in love with them.  Soon, he is forced to take a side – the humans or the Na’vi.  Which one do you think he chooses?  That’s right, he chooses the Na’vi.  He then helps them to fight off the humans, eventually winning the war, and he becomes the king of the Na’vi and sends the humans back home.  Does any of this sound familiar?  It should, because you’ve seen it in EVERY MOVIE YOU’VE EVER SEEN!!!  So the one thing I didn’t like about this movie was probably the most important thing you’d want to keep somebody watching it.  Fortunately, there was a lot to like about this.

            I guess the first thing that I should talk about is the special FX, because that seems to be what everybody is talking about with this flick.  Yes, James Cameron did create new technology for this movie.  No, you did not see the effect of this technology.  Let me take a moment to explain.  When movies and video games involving a lot of computer generated creatures are made, they’re usually done using motion capture technologies.  Motion capture is when the actor or actress wears a black leotard with dozens of tiny little green ping pong balls on it (it looks like this).  The actor then performs however he or she wants and then the movements of the little balls are converted into computer code.  Then they use the computer to create a CGI creature, and use the actors movements as a template.  They used this technology for Gollum in Lord of the Rings and King Kong in….King Kong, as well as in countless other movies.  What James Cameron did for Avatar, is he created a camera that converted the ping pong ball movements directly into the image that we see on the screen.  Previously, when people used Motion Capture technology, it would take several months of computer work to convert the MoCap into a believable character, and the actor, director and crew would often have to go back several times to create new data.  With Cameron’s new camera, they can do it on the set, and it only has to be done once.

            When it comes to the special effects, Cameron really took his time with this.  It took him 10 years to complete the visuals of this.  The entire movie takes place on a distant planet, and believe me, you will buy every second of it.  You will be upset that this magical planet doesn’t exist, because it is completely beautiful.  I’ve never seen any thing like this, and I really hope I get to see more of it.  Cameron and the FX company (Weta, which is owned by Peter Jackson, who did the Lord of the Rings movies) put thought and time into each individual blade of grass, and it really showed.  The digital characters were done very well.  The first scene was a little awkward, but I think it was meant to be that way.   After about 15 minutes of seeing the Avatars and the Na’vi, you never once think of them as digital creations.  These are living, breathing people, and you genuinely care about them.  The action sequences were spectacular as well.  Each one had me on the edge of my seat.  Last, the 3D was superb.  Most movies use 3D as a gimmick.  Lots of shots of things coming towards the camera, things like that.  Avatar used it differently.  Everything was in 3D, but it was all pretty natural.  Sure, there were some shots down long hallways, but for the most part, it was all just a regular movie in 3 dimensions.

Next, the casting.  Sam Worthington did a pretty good job (just like he did in T:S, an otherwise pretty mediocre movie). Here as the main character.  I was totally with him on his entire journey.  He never became unbelievable.  His emotion was always real.  He did a good job, and I see a lot of good things ahead for this kid.  Zoe Saldana performed just as well.  Even though her character was done digitally and you never see the actual actress, her facial ticks and physical expressions definitely show through.  She did a really great job at making us believe in her as a character with real thoughts and feelings.  The rest of the cast, however, were just a bunch of stereotypes.  Giovanni Ribisi, who is usually pretty awesome, is simply the uncaring bad guy.  He plays the same character as Bill Paxton in Aliens.  He’s just completely evil.  Sigourney Weaver plays the environmentalist scientist.  She’s just on Pandora to observe the natives and the wildlife.  She doesn’t want anybody to get hurt.  There was one interesting line where Jake said “Dr. Augustine knew what I was doing, but she let it happen so that she could get closer to the Na’vi.”  I found this line incredibly interesting, but they never said anything else about it.  Stage actor Stephen Lang played Colonel Miles Quaritch.  If Giovanni Ribisi’s character was evil, then Colonel Quaritch was Satan.  He says all the things that you expect a bad guy to say, like “Shut your pie hole” and “It seems diplomacy has failed.”  The bad thing about this movie, as I said before, is that for the most part, it’s incredibly predictable, right down to the characters and the dialogue.  And boy is the dialogue atrocious is some parts of this movie.  Just plain terrible.  Cheesy dialogue is fine in a movie with good actors that embrace the cheese (like Inglorious Basterds).  Cheesy dialogue is not acceptable in a movie that tries to be an epic adventure (like Avatar). There were many parts where the cheesy dialogue took me completely out of the experience.

Did I like Avatar?  Hell yes.  The experience was extraordinary.  Was it a good movie?  Kind of.  The story and characters were nothing new.  The dialogue was downright bad.  But it looked beautiful.  And even though I’ve seen the story at least 3 million times, I still enjoyed myself.  I truly believe that it’s a game changer, at least when it comes to filmmaking.  Does it deserve awards for Best film? Hell no.  Best director, definitely, but this is not the best film I’ve seen this year, not by a long shot.  I can still recommend it though.  I’m gonna give it a 7.5/10.