Master is Back !

Rating: 9/10 (22 December 2009)

James Cameron returns to big screen with all of his grandeur after 12 years of hypersleep. During all this time he mostly kept himself busy with some documentary projects like "Expedition Bismark" and last few years with Avatar. Apearently he was waiting for necessary CGI visual and camera technology to develop....
Usually I dislike when a movie production is sold to gullible audience through only with overblown massive CGI ( mainly with explosions ) and a lame bad or awful script and terrible or non existent characterization. Industrial Hollywood directors like Bay or Emmerich just sign on horrible scrips only to show latest massive CGI destruction scenes....But thankfully James Cameron does not take that path. He uses CGI and other extensive visual/camera technology to tell a simple , understandable ( though covered before in other previous productions ) story through visuals...That means he uses elegant scene capturing , camera work , excellent acting and elegant plus revolutionary CGI all combined together to tell a story , including its background and universe. He is using visuals , CGI to tell his story and set its background extensively. That's why "Avatar"s battle scene was towards its end ( it was also excellent and massive of course ) Cameron uses more than half of 162 minutes just to introduce this new alien planet , its ecology , biosphere and beautifully created Na'vi people plus characters with visuals..He takes his time...But to make it interesting he does that again with excellent amazing and creative visuals and scenery...And in 3-D wow..absolutely amazing...You are virtually in this alien but somehow familiar planet. And with all of these imagery , scenery , visual 3-D tech planet Pandora , its surroundings , plant-animal life and Na'vi culture all seem something novel , aesthetically gorgeous , wondrous and interesting to audience...That my friends is the mark of great movie making...We became so familiar and combined with Na'vi and their harmony with nature , way of life and beautiful environment when action starts we subconsciously side with them. It is almost like instinct...One side there is military industrial complex of humanity in future who wants to expel Na'vi with massive firepower , exploit their lands and ruin natural habitat ( as we have seen countless times in history in colonization of American and African continents ) just to mine a mineral below ground...At the other side these beautiful and simple people with their harmony with nature....
As I mentioned before story was covered before in other productions like Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas so it is also kinda predictable ( that's why I broke one star from rating ) but as I said before magic of Cameron is ability to tell even a simple and previously told story from a different angle with astonishing visuals , serious attitude ( there is no lame humor here ) and emotionally moving and exciting way...There isn't much originality left in Hollywood storytelling anyway..and I pick Avatar's story over stereotype evil aliens vs good victim humans and military saves world with massive firepower plots....Still towards the end of battle sequence some events began to go over the top....Like Eywa "Mother Nature" comes to rescue at last minute , it was a lame cop out McGuffin so good guys win at the end...Col. Quaritch jumping from crashing command craft in a battle suit was silly like something out of a dorky Bay movie and his final fight in battle suit with Jake and Neytiri reminded me a final boss level fight from a mediocre video game...
But these are small nit pickings. Basically story was good and it was about something ( anti-corporate , anti-militarization , nature/environment preservation ) As for the acting it was usually decent. Sam Worthington was OK...Zoe Saldana was excellent ( still amazed how her and other characters CGI facial features were so elegantly displayed in different emotions..How the hell they pulled off that ! ) Sigourney Weaver is bringing her usual professional performance. Her character Dr. Grace Augistine reminded me another character played by Weaver again..Dr Dian Fossey in "Gorillas in the Mist" (1988). Stephen Lang was great as bad ass Col. Quaritch. Lang had also pulled an impressive secondary character performance in Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" this summer and here in "Avatar" he does not disappoint again as main antagonist. Quaritch was basically General Patton of future...Giovanni Ribisi as Selfridge , a corporate weasel ( a clear rip off from Burke character from Aliens ) , Michelle Rodriguez as chopper pilot Trudy and Joel Moore as Spellman were again OK as secondary characters...
So summary : Master James Cameron is back folks...Though Avatar is short of excellent or perfect as it intends to be...it is damn good , it has at least a nice plot , amazing visual scenes and it provides a fantastic entertainment...And I loved the soundtrack..Definitely will buy it...