Avatar Review
Avatar was arguably the most entertaining movies to come out this year; a year that had a couple other equally entertaining flicks like Star Trek, District 9 and Inglourious Basterds. Most action directors filming today should look back at Cameron’s career...here with Avatar, but stretching back to True Lies, Aliens, the first two Terminator flicks...even the action in Titanic. Cameron is an expert director of pacing. It’s one thing about his films that is truly noteworthy. Even when working with long epics like Titanic (or even Aliens, where the longer director’s cut is even better), his films never feel long or boring. In Avatar, I’ve seen things on film I’ve never seen before.
Cameron has created a living, breathing, breathtaking world that fantasy authors merely dream about. His world is probably the most realized depiction of a truly alien planet. If you look at what went into it, the work here is staggering. He created plant life, named it, categorized it. He hired a researcher to create the Na’vi language. Pandora feels real. In 3D, it’s even more staggering. At times, I felt like I could just walk through the screen and enter Pandora...probably a good thing I can’t, what with the fact that I’m not an Avatar and the air would kill me. Details, details.
On a purely technical level, Avatar is nothing short of visionary. Moment did creep in where I was taken out of the illusion created. Sure, there are times when the Na’vi didn’t look “real” and I knew they were computer generated. But there were also other times when I felt like I was watching real, ten foot tall blue people on a screen. Zoe Saldana’s character, Neytiri was amazingly crafted. I never once doubted that she wasn’t real. Zoe also imbued her character with more “oomf” than anyone else. In fact, she outshone everyone else in the film. The best segment for me was a tragic moment for Neytiri, where her wails and abject rage and horror melted into one cry. Moments like that had me on the edge of my seat.
Looking at it from a purely storytelling perspective...Avatar isn’t one of Cameron’s best. The quickest and the most from the gut reaction would be, “you’ve been sitting on this story since the 80s...actively worked on it for the last decade...and THIS is the best you could come up with?” Cameron’s characters have never been incredibly deep. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Aliens is probably the one exception to the rule, especially if you watch the director’s cut. That said, if you were to look at his characters, they are all stock characters. Archetypes. Take Aliens, which practically invented the now-too-common war archetypes. You have the tough as nails woman, who throws barbs with the best of them. You have the love interest male lead who believes the female lead when no one else does. You have the jokester. The conniving and sniveling corporation man. The cigar-chewing, no nonsense sergeant. I could go on, and on.
Avatar is no different. Each character fits into a specific archetype; some easier than others. I couldn’t take Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Grace Augustine seriously in the beginning. She’s introduced as a walking warpath of a scientist. Instead of chewing a cigar, she chain smokes thin cigarettes. Obviously, Cameron was trying to force her into the roll of a no nonsense scientist, aping the kind of cigar-chewing aesthetic I mentioned above and it doesn’t work for her. Once her character is allowed to breathe, she does much better. I also don’t get Sam Worthington’s charm. It seems like Hollywood is trying to push him out as the next “It Action Star.” Within a year, he’s been in Terminator Salvation and Avatar; in a couple months, he’ll be in Clash of the Titans. Heir apparent to Russell Crowe? The allusions seem to point to yes. But I don’t quite get it. He has as much charm as a rock. It’s only when he gets to hide behind the computer graphics that any sort of personality shines through.
To make a sidetrack that ties into this archetypical character structure, the actual story and its themes are probably the weakest area in Avatar. A lot of people have discussed issues of racism in Avatar, which I think are apt but not maybe in the same way that people think. The story’s central position is that of the “Noble Savage.” This is a story that’s been popularized throughout the history of cinema. For whatever reason, it always seems to be a crowd pleaser. The term was coined back in 1672, in The Conquest of Granada by the poet Dryden. It’s been used as a way to compare two societies; for instance, in the famous essay “of Cannibals,” Michel de Montaigne compared and contrasted a tribe of people in Brazil with the current religious violence breaking out in France. The implication was that the tribe might be cannibals and their enemies, but it’s a matter of honor; whereas, in the Catholic church, people were being burned alive for their opinions on religion. Since then, the term has been used in a variety of ways; it’s been linked to scientific racism; as a “romantic” view of how nice it would be if we lived like “them;” as angst against imperialism or colonialism. It has always had a somewhat derogatory undertone to it.
More recently, movies have co-opted this metaphor and have used it in vaguely insulting ways. Look to Dances with Wolves, for example. White man leaves the cavalry, finds a Native American tribe. At first he is disdainful of their ways, but ends up identifying as one of them, leads them to victory and, in some ways, forsakes his prior life to live as one. Avatar follows pretty much the same story structure, almost down to a “T.” And this is where a lot of the disdain for the movie comes from. It normally comes in the line of “here we go again, another white director is making a movie in which a white character meets an indigenous tribe of people, ends up becoming their savior and throws off the chains of imperialism and his heritage to embrace ‘the noble savage.’” And you can’t fault people who levy this charge. Everything they say is true. This is a hugely obvious theme here. I don’t think that Cameron’s depiction of the Na’vi is racist; they are an imaginary and fantastical race of people living on a completely different type of planet that has probably ever been shown in movies. Who is to say that his depiction of a race that he created in his head is wrong/racist? Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
And sometimes it’s not. In this case, the implication behind the white Jake Sully becoming the “simple tribe’s” savior is definitely something you can throw the racist dart at. Once again, the white person has saved the non-white group of people from both themselves and the encroaching, overly white imperialistic army. It is vaguely insulting.
That said, there’s still a lot of good ideas and concepts in the movie. I absolutely loved the way the Na’vi are literally attuned with nature. They literally plug their hair into both the wildlife and the flora. It takes a concept of being one with nature to a whole new, oftentimes breath-taking level. To see the way in which Cameron has crafted this fully-functioning society is very interesting to me. It’s both mystical in the same sense as The Force was in the original Star Wars films (before Lucas had to corrupt it by tying it to science and cellular structure) but also invokes the way in which we have become literally plugged into our manmade nature (i.e. internet and technology). Our love of technology contrasts beautifully with the Na’vi’s love of nature, down to the simple acting of literally “plugging in.” I also loved the antiwar/environmental themes addressed inside.
So there you have it. Avatar was both visionary and insulting. Both a pioneer and a copycat. Incredibly rich and rewarding, but stock filled with stereotypes (some of which Cameron created years ago). I loved it. It entertained me for the entire 2.5 hours. And I spent most of the movie with my eyes darting around the huge IMAX screen, trying to take in everything Cameron was throwing at me. In a medium where the visual is key, Avatar is tops.
Cameron has created a living, breathing, breathtaking world that fantasy authors merely dream about. His world is probably the most realized depiction of a truly alien planet. If you look at what went into it, the work here is staggering. He created plant life, named it, categorized it. He hired a researcher to create the Na’vi language. Pandora feels real. In 3D, it’s even more staggering. At times, I felt like I could just walk through the screen and enter Pandora...probably a good thing I can’t, what with the fact that I’m not an Avatar and the air would kill me. Details, details.
On a purely technical level, Avatar is nothing short of visionary. Moment did creep in where I was taken out of the illusion created. Sure, there are times when the Na’vi didn’t look “real” and I knew they were computer generated. But there were also other times when I felt like I was watching real, ten foot tall blue people on a screen. Zoe Saldana’s character, Neytiri was amazingly crafted. I never once doubted that she wasn’t real. Zoe also imbued her character with more “oomf” than anyone else. In fact, she outshone everyone else in the film. The best segment for me was a tragic moment for Neytiri, where her wails and abject rage and horror melted into one cry. Moments like that had me on the edge of my seat.
Looking at it from a purely storytelling perspective...Avatar isn’t one of Cameron’s best. The quickest and the most from the gut reaction would be, “you’ve been sitting on this story since the 80s...actively worked on it for the last decade...and THIS is the best you could come up with?” Cameron’s characters have never been incredibly deep. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Aliens is probably the one exception to the rule, especially if you watch the director’s cut. That said, if you were to look at his characters, they are all stock characters. Archetypes. Take Aliens, which practically invented the now-too-common war archetypes. You have the tough as nails woman, who throws barbs with the best of them. You have the love interest male lead who believes the female lead when no one else does. You have the jokester. The conniving and sniveling corporation man. The cigar-chewing, no nonsense sergeant. I could go on, and on.
Avatar is no different. Each character fits into a specific archetype; some easier than others. I couldn’t take Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Grace Augustine seriously in the beginning. She’s introduced as a walking warpath of a scientist. Instead of chewing a cigar, she chain smokes thin cigarettes. Obviously, Cameron was trying to force her into the roll of a no nonsense scientist, aping the kind of cigar-chewing aesthetic I mentioned above and it doesn’t work for her. Once her character is allowed to breathe, she does much better. I also don’t get Sam Worthington’s charm. It seems like Hollywood is trying to push him out as the next “It Action Star.” Within a year, he’s been in Terminator Salvation and Avatar; in a couple months, he’ll be in Clash of the Titans. Heir apparent to Russell Crowe? The allusions seem to point to yes. But I don’t quite get it. He has as much charm as a rock. It’s only when he gets to hide behind the computer graphics that any sort of personality shines through.
To make a sidetrack that ties into this archetypical character structure, the actual story and its themes are probably the weakest area in Avatar. A lot of people have discussed issues of racism in Avatar, which I think are apt but not maybe in the same way that people think. The story’s central position is that of the “Noble Savage.” This is a story that’s been popularized throughout the history of cinema. For whatever reason, it always seems to be a crowd pleaser. The term was coined back in 1672, in The Conquest of Granada by the poet Dryden. It’s been used as a way to compare two societies; for instance, in the famous essay “of Cannibals,” Michel de Montaigne compared and contrasted a tribe of people in Brazil with the current religious violence breaking out in France. The implication was that the tribe might be cannibals and their enemies, but it’s a matter of honor; whereas, in the Catholic church, people were being burned alive for their opinions on religion. Since then, the term has been used in a variety of ways; it’s been linked to scientific racism; as a “romantic” view of how nice it would be if we lived like “them;” as angst against imperialism or colonialism. It has always had a somewhat derogatory undertone to it.
More recently, movies have co-opted this metaphor and have used it in vaguely insulting ways. Look to Dances with Wolves, for example. White man leaves the cavalry, finds a Native American tribe. At first he is disdainful of their ways, but ends up identifying as one of them, leads them to victory and, in some ways, forsakes his prior life to live as one. Avatar follows pretty much the same story structure, almost down to a “T.” And this is where a lot of the disdain for the movie comes from. It normally comes in the line of “here we go again, another white director is making a movie in which a white character meets an indigenous tribe of people, ends up becoming their savior and throws off the chains of imperialism and his heritage to embrace ‘the noble savage.’” And you can’t fault people who levy this charge. Everything they say is true. This is a hugely obvious theme here. I don’t think that Cameron’s depiction of the Na’vi is racist; they are an imaginary and fantastical race of people living on a completely different type of planet that has probably ever been shown in movies. Who is to say that his depiction of a race that he created in his head is wrong/racist? Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
And sometimes it’s not. In this case, the implication behind the white Jake Sully becoming the “simple tribe’s” savior is definitely something you can throw the racist dart at. Once again, the white person has saved the non-white group of people from both themselves and the encroaching, overly white imperialistic army. It is vaguely insulting.
That said, there’s still a lot of good ideas and concepts in the movie. I absolutely loved the way the Na’vi are literally attuned with nature. They literally plug their hair into both the wildlife and the flora. It takes a concept of being one with nature to a whole new, oftentimes breath-taking level. To see the way in which Cameron has crafted this fully-functioning society is very interesting to me. It’s both mystical in the same sense as The Force was in the original Star Wars films (before Lucas had to corrupt it by tying it to science and cellular structure) but also invokes the way in which we have become literally plugged into our manmade nature (i.e. internet and technology). Our love of technology contrasts beautifully with the Na’vi’s love of nature, down to the simple acting of literally “plugging in.” I also loved the antiwar/environmental themes addressed inside.
So there you have it. Avatar was both visionary and insulting. Both a pioneer and a copycat. Incredibly rich and rewarding, but stock filled with stereotypes (some of which Cameron created years ago). I loved it. It entertained me for the entire 2.5 hours. And I spent most of the movie with my eyes darting around the huge IMAX screen, trying to take in everything Cameron was throwing at me. In a medium where the visual is key, Avatar is tops.