Join the Na'vis

Rating: 10/10 (28 September 2017)

I must admit the film had me at the very beginning, when a paraplegic says that he loves to dream because dreams make running and walking possible, my head keeps nodding as if it was mounted on springs. And the emotional outcome of that moment occurs when the Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) wakes up in his avatar's new skin and doesn't feel any weirdness, he's just so happy he starts to run as if he was in a dream, as if nothing mattered anymore, not even the mission. I loved that moment because it felt surreal yet so real, Sully wouldn't have cared about looking like Jar-Jar Binks if it made him feel his toes again. Youssa better believe it.
And this might be Cameron's way to tell us that even something as big as "Avatar" started as a tiny dream, and the first images with the hybrid Na'vis might have inspired him the same eccstatic reaction than Sully, his babies were alive, in synthetic images but alive nonetheless! Now, maybe it's because "Avatar" involves a giant alien species but the film is so cinematically "big" that it doesn't just dwarf other movies, it dwarfs any attempt to criticize it on the sole basis that the plot carries many déjà vu feelings.
You see me coming, but come on, who the hell am I to say, this movie is a retread of "Pocahontas", "Dances With Wolves" or "Princess Mono-noke"? James Cameron himself admitted to have made the story out of several inspiration and that included his childhood books and his mothers' dreams. Was "Titanic" any more original? Yet it made Cameron the king of the world. "Avatar" turned him into an undisputed Emperor and the film was so unique, inventive in the concept and innovative in the treatment that it flies over the critic.
That's not to say you can't criticize it but the amount of things worthy of praise is so overwhelming critics would be like complaining that the Sphinx misses a nose. So I guess I'd feel better if I gave "Avatar" ten points already and then talk about the eventual little things that-could-have-been-better. So let's go
I still remember how big "Avatar" was in 2009, the last film to be as big without belonging to the "Star Wars" franchise was "Titanic" so since this was from the same director, people knew they were going to be blown away before swallowing the first popcorn. And they were. Yes the film is marvelously looking but it's CGI. I loved it as far as I can appreciate a good Pixar movie but reading Roger Ebert's reviews, I felt like he loved the film on the sole basis that it created a whole new world, and that it didn't matter that the film didn't break any narrative ground.
Now, does it matter? Not really, I also praised "Titanic" while it wasn't the most original story ever, but it had characters I cared for, and worthy antagonists. There was a moment in "Avatar" where the scientist played by Sigourney Weaver was describing the power of trees, the way they use their roots as a synapses and so on (which can be a rationalization for the trees' magical power in "Pocahontas"). This part had me intrigued and involved but then Ribisi's character had to ruin it by saying "there are just goddamn trees". I was baffled by his lack of empathy, it's just as if they wanted to supply his mouth with some villain's dialogue and the same awkward attempts were made with the Captain of the mission played by Stephen Lang.
Basically, you have the good natives, who behave exactly like extra-terrestrial natives and you have the good and the bad white and in the role of Lieutenant John Smith Dunbar, there's Worthington. The film recycled so many plots elements that it's difficult to disconnect your cliché-radar. But if the radar doesn't work, how about forgetting about the story and listening to the dialogue, the new language Cameron invented by pulling a Tolkien, watching the little details in the scenery, yes, yes CGI, but what CGI! We're not talking about any computer imagery, this is a vision that kept on Cameron's mind since before "Titanic" and he waited for the technological advances to make them possible.
Even the king of the world was disarmed but he wisely waited for the right time and it became the highest-grossing film of all time. Any good team of computer programmers could have done it, the film is a feast to the eyes, it's a deep story, but I was reminded that there were more than special effects to make a film, "Avatar" might not be a triumph of storytelling but it doesn't have a bad story to tell, its environmentalist issues, the way they foreshadow our future needs, echo some masterpieces from Miyazaki. In fact, I kept thinking of Mono-noke while watching the film, now is the film less worthy of praise because one was drawn? Let's say I prefer the way there's no villains in "Mono-noke" but to Cameron's defense, the film couldn't have had another third act.
And let's acknowledge the creative force behind the very concept of the avatar and the beauty of the Na'vis; Cameron created a world, a myth, he stole George Lucas' thunder and proved that cinema wouldn't just rely on "Star Wars" and then on comic-book movies. The man had guts, vision and the guts to follow his vision and he also had the dough. You refuse nothing to the king of the world, but if all it took to make great movies was money, blockbusters would never flop. "Avatar" was deemed to succeed, because it was a game changer. And as far as critics go, the game is over.