Avatar triumphs amid a dearth of sub-par box office releases.

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2009)

When James Cameron began pre-development on Avatar in the mid-nineties, he knew Hollywood had yet to catch up to the demands his ambitious project required. It wasn't until viewing Peter Jackson's The Two Towers that Cameron felt that digital effects had evolved far enough to make his masterpiece possible. And boy, was it ever a good thing that he waited.
Cameron is no stranger to science fiction. His work with Aliens and the Terminator franchise, arguably some of the best sci-fi flicks ever created, proved that Cameron had the directorial chops to make a staple in the dwindling sci-fi market. After all, who could really follow in the wake of George Lucas's blockbuster panorama that was Star Wars? Cameron succeeded in delivering a realistically gritty and dark vision to a genre that had been plagued with high fantasy and space opera tropes. And while Avatar utilizes the vision of filmmakers like Peter Jackson, George Lucas, and even Akira Kurasawa, Cameron manages to retain that brow-beaten, film noir flair he brought to Aliens.
While Avatar's script has a few problems, namely the deus ex machina and predictable ending, the film's crowning achievement is in its visuals. And what an achievement it is. Pandora is a complete digitally realized world. Cameron succeeds in developing a beautifully crafted visual landscape that would make Monet salivate at the very sight of it. As we traverse this alien terrain along with title character Jake Sully's avatar, we are at once encompassed by the seeming depth and mystery that this world contains. Along with Jake, we fall in love with Pandora, the forest and all its inhabitants, and we therefore sympathise with his plight to save it from the Colonial regime that threatens to destroy it.
Sam Worthington, a relative newcomer, delivers a stunning performance as Jake Sully, a paraplegic marine who fills his late brother's shoes as the controller of an Avatar, a genetically modified indigenous species which is created to help establish rapport with the Na'vi natives of Pandora. Signourney Weaver returns to work with Cameron, and though she ditches the brawn for brains, her performance proves that she still retains a semblance of the bad ass female persona Ripley, which she played in Alien. Giovani Ribisi lends his talents with typical swine flair as an industrialist intent on reaping Pandora for its massive profit potential. Also in the supporting cast is Michelle Rodriquez, in her usual run-and-gun-ass-kicking-female-who-is-taking-names role. Stephen Lang, a veteran actor, shines as Colonol Quaritch, a character who could give R. Lee Ermy's Hartman a run for his money.
Avatar's script is chock full of allegory reminiscent of Europe's colonization of Native America. While title character Jake Sully is a colonizer, the unique representation of him as an avatar transforms him into their noble savage. By instilling a colonist into the natives' way of life, he becomes then the symbol of the colonist's ideals, and subsequently, fights to rebel against them, delivering both the point of view of the colonist and the colonized simultaneously.
There's never a point in the film that makes you feel like you're watching another Pixar movie. Avatar's brilliant use of motion-capture and digital effects encapsulates a human aspect rarely seen in animated film. The anatomy of the Na'vi is constructed brilliantly, delivering a plethora of realistic facial tics and body language that makes you forget that half of the film is digitally animated. Cameron succeeds in blending the digital world and the real world seamlessly, and without reminding the audience that they are watching an "artistic" film, it instead falls on the back burner and serves as a successful narrative tool which engrosses the audience in a world uneasily imagined in their dreams.
Cameron has successfully removed the line between graphic cinema and photographic realism with Avatar. If you're still not convinced about the film's visual splendor, try it in 3D. This is the film you've been waiting to see in the theater. I promise you.