A solid piece of entertainment

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2012)

It's impossible to watch AVATAR for the first time – especially a good two years after it first came out – without being influenced by all the fuss surrounding it, with endless critics, fans and reviewers praising it as a game-changing FX movie, a film heralding in a new era of cinematic spectacle, the best movie of all time, yada yada yada. Such praise invariably leaves me cold, which is why I finally caught up with this film not in the cinema but on television during its debut showing. I was in no hurry.
My thoughts? AVATAR is a decent film, yes, and one that's highly entertaining – but it's no masterpiece. Cameron works hard and puts in a great deal of effort as director, but it doesn't come close to the strength and power of his earlier one-two pairing, THE TERMINATOR and ALIENS. AVATAR is a film that works on a superficial level as long as you don't think about it too much, and the overly familiar storyline has already been done before in the likes of DANCES WITH WOLVES. Except Cameron had the clever idea of transporting the action to an alien planet and hoping nobody would notice. And you know what? It seems nobody – or very few people - actually did.
Does the somewhat slim storyline justify the rather excessive running time? I'm not entirely sure it does. The beginning feels a little slow and the whole fish-out-of-water premise involving the central character's induction to the alien society is rather familiar. Much of the film just seems like an excuse to show off the CGI effects, which are admittedly impressive although not quite as lifelike as Cameron would have you believe. I'd still have preferred them to use unadulterated human actors for the aliens, rather than converting the performances by the actors into pure CGI, but then you can't have anything.
As is usual with Cameron, the film is more about the technology and the science rather than the characters. The actors don't make a great deal of impact, it has to be said; the dull Sam Worthington made his name with this and TERMINATOR: SALVATION, two films which barely require him to act. Still, Sigourney Weaver is on hand to show him how it's done, and Stephen Lang makes a great villain, as always (I still remember him from the likes of Steven Seagal actioner FIRE DOWN BELOW in the '90s, and I guess it took a while for everyone else to catch up). It's hard to assess the performers playing the aliens because the effects are just too distracting.
At its heart, AVATAR is a simple and straightforward action film, offering the kind of breakneck, breathtaking effects-infused sequences that highlighted TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. It's admittedly beautiful to watch, particularly the alien landscapes brought stunningly to life and the various creatures that inhabit them. The action is engaging, particularly the extensive climax in which the speed picks up a gear and Cameron really lets loose with all kinds of pyrotechnic mayhem. The climax, which seems to run for about forty minutes, displays a willingness to dispatch important characters in a realistic and gritty way, really ending the movie on a high and leaving the viewer with a good impression. It may be familiar – too much so in places – but as a piece of spectacle, AVATAR ticks all the right boxes.