The wave finally breaks

Rating: 7/10 (1 May 2010)

With a tale built on great excess came excessive criticisms at both ends of the spectrum. So is Avatar the most awesome spectacle in cinematic history, or a dire, blue-hued re-telling of Dances with Wolves? In truth it's neither. It's simply (emphasis on "simply") an enjoyable sci-fi romp – albeit one that could have done with a little more science and a little less romp.
We come to terms fairly quickly with the fact that we're not dealing with three-dimensional characters, but rather archetypes playing out in 3D. So Pandora and her population's plight takes centre stage. It's a laudable allegory about Native American displacement, massacre, and Five Nations coalition. Except here the animism is more than spiritual delusion, being a detectable, neuro-chemical network stretching across the entire biosphere. Sadly this interesting concept is only properly explored in a single five-minute scene; and yet Jake Sully's (a blank Sam Worthington) adoption of his flying steed, with all its rippling wings and nose-diving peril, lasts three times that.
Which perhaps represents Avatar's greatest problem. Cameron is so in love with his world, and so intent on making us fall in love with it, that we spend too much time in idle admiration. No wonder the natives are known as "The People" – they exist as a single narrative entity as tour guides for Cameron's dreamy interior. As Sully predictably falls for Neytiri (a luminous Zoe Saldana), it's really the world he's learning to love, not her.
Special mention should go to Stephen Lang for his joyous pantomime performance as the monstrous Colonel Quaritch, and the first bearable performance from Giovanni Ribisi since... well... ever.
With Titanic and now Avatar, Cameron seems to be letting The Abyss's climactic wave crash; taking a new delight in observing the stupefaction of crowds of little people as he unleashes upon them his thunderous acts of god. (Now in 3D!) Given the director's considerable ego, I wonder if, in the dreamboat passengers tossed about like ragdolls, and in the twisted faces of his Na'vi, awed and agape, it might be you and I he sees.