An Inconvenient Invasion – ‘Avatar’ Review

Posted on January 3, 2010 - 6:54pm by michael For James Cameron, one of the cinema’s most powerful filmmakers, to take 14 years of planning to execute a film that he reportedly has been planning since childhood, the result better be something pretty freaking spectacular, and Avatar is definitely nothing less than spectacular. It’s a masterpiece of film artistry from a brilliant writer and director at the top of his form and instantly takes its place among the greatest science fiction films ever made. That’s a powerful statement, of course, but Avatar takes us to a completely new world, which is something that even the most recent science fiction films have not only failed to do, but deliberately flinched back from doing. Consider the ending of Pandorum, an otherwise outstanding sci-fi thriller which takes us to a new, inhabitable world, but covers it with clouds rather than attempting to give us even a passing glimpse of it. And 2012 ended with the ships theoretically heading towards Africa, the last inhabitable place on earth, while not even attempting to show us what was left of our planet. Not this movie, man. James Cameron, whatever your opinion about the movie as a whole, has given us the most richly detailed and thoroughly presented alien world that has ever been committed to film. That’s another powerful statement, I know, but if you’ve seen a totally unknown world presented in better detail in a movie, I should sincerely like to hear what movie it was. Cameron takes us to a real, three-dimensional world and saturates the screen with detail, even putting it all in slow motion so we can get a good look at the animals inhabiting the place. The story is about mankind in the year 2154, searching for another planet to inhabit, now that we’ve totally destroyed our own world. Not exactly the most original catalyst, but the space travel is secondary to the story that unfolds on Pandora, the new planet, as the movie’s rather ham-handed anti-war message plays itself out for us. Pandora is inhabited by the Na’vi, a race of, ah, people, let’s say, who are blue-skinned, yellow-eyed and about ten or twelve feet tall, possibly because the gravity is weaker than Earth’s. Their planet is a phenomenal artistic creation – the flora and fauna alone are so thoroughly detailed and fascinating that they could spawn a school of study. But the only thing the Earthlings are interested in is the rich deposit of “Unobtainium” waiting to be harvested from underneath one of their largest and most sacred trees. If there’s one thing that I could criticize the movie about, it’s the obvious throwbacks to current and recent American wars. Just in case you weren’t already thinking about Iraq because of the whole story about invading a foreign land about which we know little and care even less other than the fact that they have a resource we need (and because Stephen Lang plays Colonel Miles Quaritch, the military leader, with an unmistakable Texan drawl), I counted the lines “win the hearts and minds of the natives,” “some kind of shock and awe campaign,” “there’s nothing we have that they want” (democracy, anyone?), and my favorite, “fight terror with terror!” The script is clearly not the movie’s strong point, but it's interesting that the invaders justify their assault by claiming that they’ll have to fight the terror that they introduced to Pandora with, I guess, more terror. At any rate, I think it’s best to let the Iraq metaphors rest there. Avatar is not a piece of political filmmaking, but it would be pretty naïve not to realize that it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to derive some pretty major political statements from it. More interestingly, the movie’s biggest gimmick, and meaning of it’s title, is the militarily necessary “avatars” that humans have to remotely control in order to enter and study the Na’vi inhabitants and thus orchestrate their destruction. Sort of like the little guys you use in Farm Town, except with more detail. Or like the guys in Gamer, but with more detail. Or like the surrogates in Surrogates, but with more detail. Cameron knows enough to make the natives not only peaceful, but with a deeply sophisticated culture, a connection to their planet that most modern humans couldn’t begin to understand, and absolutely fascinating and attractive, so that the invading “aliens” look like violent, soulless little goblins that need masks to breathe and, gasp, don’t seem to believe in anything. [caption id="attachment_67696" align="alignleft" width="399" caption="Weapon of Mass Heart and Mind Winning"][/caption] Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, who you might remember as the guy who thought he was human in Terminator Salvation) is the paraplegic twin brother of a man who was highly trained to take control of an expensive avatar which, like the rest, was grown organically and designed to be remotely commanded by real humans from the confines of the base on Pandora. Theoretically any harm that comes to the avatar would leave the human unaffected, but we’ve all seen movies before so we know that’s probably not true. Sigourney Weaver makes the most welcome appearance of anyone in the movie as Dr. Grace Augustine, in charge of managing the avatar controlling and who has a much friendlier disposition toward the Na’vi than the corporate presence, Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). Performances across the board are spot-on and play off of each other with remarkable precision, even from Michelle Rodriguez, who I’m still trying to forgive for The Fast and the Furious and “Lost.” No luck so far, but things are looking up. More importantly, I’m hoping that James Cameron will keep making movies for at least the next 50-70 years. After that I probably won’t be watching movies that often, but his is one of the most interesting and successful careers in Hollywood. Every time he tells us his next movie is going to reinvent this and it’s going to raise the bar on that, we’re always skeptical but he always delivers. I have yet to have the opportunity to see Avatar in the 3D that he had his own cameras made to create, and I doubt it’s going to be very easy to get IMAX tickets any time soon, but if ever there was a movie that was deserving of spending the extra cash for the extra dimension, this is it. In the meantime, 2009 is officially over, the road to the Oscars is well under way, and Avatar is at the head of a sterling motorcade. The Bean Meter . *Update: January 4, 2010. I just saw Avatar in 3D and I kid you not, it was one of the best times I've had in a movie theater in my entire life, other than a few choice dating experiences in high school. IMAX is definitely worth the extra cash!