REVIEW: Avatar

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2010)

"Avatar" is a film directed by James Cameron about an ex-marine, Jake Sulley, who has become part of a project known as the Avatar Program. The Avatar Program is a system where humans can walk through Pandora, which is the home of a race of people known as the Na'vi, as one of the people, and when I say one of the people, I mean your essence in the body of a Na'vi. These are known as avatars. What we learn from Jake is that he was injured in combat, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He also had a twin brother who was part of the Avatar Program, but he was killed in action. After being called in, he is given a mission: make contact with the Na'vi, and make them trust him, this way the soldiers and the businessmen can obtain a mineral. During his experience on Pandora, he meets Neytiri, a woman from the Na'vi tribe, and daughter to the leader. As Jake begins to learn about the Na'vi and their beliefs, he begins to have a change in view about everything, and his heart grows fonder of Neytiri. And I am going to stop right there because I do not want to give too much away for those who have not seen it. PROS: The visuals were superb. Seeing it in IMAX 3D gave it something that would not be appreciated if you saw it in 2D in a regular theater. The development of the Na'vi was really well done. I could tell that Cameron had a huge appreciation for the Na'vi. You felt their pain, you really did. The music was also fantastic. James Horner, who scored movies like "Legends of the Fall", "An American Tail", "The Land Before Time", and "Titanic, which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. I felt that the score is part of what made the film, and the music was one of the reasons why I wanted to see "Avatar" in the first place. Zoe Saldana carries a pitch perfect performance as Neytiri. I have liked her since Gore Verbinski's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" and Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal". But it was "Avatar" that brought out the best in her. She added depth to the character that Cameron could not, which says a lot about her. CONS: The story was incredibly clichéd. Even though there were differences, it was, as someone else has said, "Pocahontas" in space. Also, the dialog was bad in certain areas. I laughed a little when I know I should not have laughed. However, Cameron also made "Titanic", which had laughable moments in the film, mostly involving Jack and Rose. Furthermore, the characters were one-dimensional. You did not care about them at all. It was your basic James Cameron story: There are good guys, and there are bad guys...and then there is everyone else. That is it. I have always been partial to movies that present 3- dimensional human beings. John Carpenter's "The Thing" comes to mind, where the only villain in the whole film was the monster. You would think that James Cameron would take advantage of making 3-dimensional characters in a film that is meant to be seen in 3D. Jake Sulley, which is moderately portrayed by Sam Worthington, had poor character development. I sat through basically the whole movie thinking, "Why should I care?" even though I did not want him to die, there was still that part of me that had no emotional stake in the outcome as far as Jake was concerned. James Cameron has always had, I think, a poor ability to create good characters and get the audience involved. He is great at making innovations in film, sure, but that can easily be removed. To me, the great filmmakers of the world get you involved on an emotional level with the film. Steven Spielberg does that in just about every film that he has ever made; Peter Jackson has been doing it ever since he made "The Lord of the Rings". The list can go on and on, but Cameron does not fit. All in all, "Avatar" is a movie that I probably will not see again, because there is no point for me to see it. If I had no connection with the characters, and if I did not care for the story, then there is no point in seeing it twice, unless I am going to make fun of it and ridicule it in a playful manner. Did it deserve its Oscars that it won? Yes, with visual effects being a given. But was it worthy of a Best Director and Best Picture nomination? Probably not.