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#437 - Avatar
James Cameron, 2009
In the mid-22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is recruited into a space exploration mission on a moon populated by a race of humanoid aliens.
Oh, dear.
That was the review of Avatar I wrote at the tail end of 2009 on the basis of a single theatrical viewing (and judging by the last paragraph, in 2-D, no less). Fast-forward to almost six years later and I not only never saw it in 3-D per what I said in that review's final paragraph, but I more or less forgot about ever trying to watch it again until it aired on TV the other night. This was probably in no small part to the cynical malaise that settled in once people started to see past the hype involved with Cameron's supposedly revolutionary decade-in-the-making follow-up to the mega-blockbuster Oscar gold of Titanic and started to dissect its rather hollow and derivative premise. Sam Worthington plays the paraplegic Marine who has been chosen to participate in a scientific mission to a moon named Pandora that is covered with lush wildlife, rich in valuable resources, and has giant blue humanoids known as the Na'vi for a dominant species. He is brought to Pandora simply because he is the twin brother of a recently deceased scientist who served as the basis for an "avatar", a Na'vi clone that can be controlled through a neural link. Of course, it turns out that the reason for the existence of avatars isn't just for the purposes of benevolent anthropology as it turns out that the real reason humans are on Pandora is to search for aforementioned valuable resources and they will stop at nothing to get them.
While I do have to concede that, when you're putting together a massive effects-driven blockbuster with a nine-figure budget and a brand-new intellectual property then you're going to want to play things reasonably safe, here things are played disappointingly safe without significant variation on the other pieces of fiction to which it bears incredible narrative similarity. The characters and their performers are serviceable enough in some rather clichéd roles; however, the people who have to act from underneath motion-capture CGI have a bit of a hard time trying to emote convincingly without audible overacting, which is difficult considering that they also have to contend with a fictional language and cat-people mannerisms. That's also the one instance where the CGI falters, because the rest of the film is otherwise a spectacular piece of visual work. However, the same lack of creativity that scuppers the narrative also bleeds through to the visuals as well, which paint Pandora as a lush rainforest environment whose only real concessions to its extraterrestrial nature come in the form of floating mountains or bizarre dinosaur-like creatures. The film does develop a somewhat consistent mythology, but it feels like little more than window dressing in this regard. Though the quality of the visuals still hold up even on 2-D TV, the weaknesses in the plot and characterisation are more than enough to prevent Avatar from being a genuine classic or even just a decent blockbuster. If Cameron and co. really is planning on spinning a whole franchise out of this concept, there are plenty of things that need fixing for when the sequels start to happen.
James Cameron, 2009
In the mid-22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is recruited into a space exploration mission on a moon populated by a race of humanoid aliens.
Oh, dear.
That was the review of Avatar I wrote at the tail end of 2009 on the basis of a single theatrical viewing (and judging by the last paragraph, in 2-D, no less). Fast-forward to almost six years later and I not only never saw it in 3-D per what I said in that review's final paragraph, but I more or less forgot about ever trying to watch it again until it aired on TV the other night. This was probably in no small part to the cynical malaise that settled in once people started to see past the hype involved with Cameron's supposedly revolutionary decade-in-the-making follow-up to the mega-blockbuster Oscar gold of Titanic and started to dissect its rather hollow and derivative premise. Sam Worthington plays the paraplegic Marine who has been chosen to participate in a scientific mission to a moon named Pandora that is covered with lush wildlife, rich in valuable resources, and has giant blue humanoids known as the Na'vi for a dominant species. He is brought to Pandora simply because he is the twin brother of a recently deceased scientist who served as the basis for an "avatar", a Na'vi clone that can be controlled through a neural link. Of course, it turns out that the reason for the existence of avatars isn't just for the purposes of benevolent anthropology as it turns out that the real reason humans are on Pandora is to search for aforementioned valuable resources and they will stop at nothing to get them.
While I do have to concede that, when you're putting together a massive effects-driven blockbuster with a nine-figure budget and a brand-new intellectual property then you're going to want to play things reasonably safe, here things are played disappointingly safe without significant variation on the other pieces of fiction to which it bears incredible narrative similarity. The characters and their performers are serviceable enough in some rather clichéd roles; however, the people who have to act from underneath motion-capture CGI have a bit of a hard time trying to emote convincingly without audible overacting, which is difficult considering that they also have to contend with a fictional language and cat-people mannerisms. That's also the one instance where the CGI falters, because the rest of the film is otherwise a spectacular piece of visual work. However, the same lack of creativity that scuppers the narrative also bleeds through to the visuals as well, which paint Pandora as a lush rainforest environment whose only real concessions to its extraterrestrial nature come in the form of floating mountains or bizarre dinosaur-like creatures. The film does develop a somewhat consistent mythology, but it feels like little more than window dressing in this regard. Though the quality of the visuals still hold up even on 2-D TV, the weaknesses in the plot and characterisation are more than enough to prevent Avatar from being a genuine classic or even just a decent blockbuster. If Cameron and co. really is planning on spinning a whole franchise out of this concept, there are plenty of things that need fixing for when the sequels start to happen.