3D grows up at last

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2010)

In the early 80's it was my misfortune to see several dreadful 3D movies which used every contrivance they could think of to either chuck things at the audience or thrust things a foot from their faces at approximately 90 second intervals. The effect of this was paradoxical in that the 3D nature of the film pushed the audience out of the movie rather than drawing them in because the movie was all about the 3D rather than the narrative. The first of those movies left me with a headache so severe that I had to lie in a dark room for 2 days to get rid of it. Just awful. I said then that the 3D format could never be successful until the director effectively forgot about the third dimension and paid more attention to the plot.
Fast forward 20 years. In between making mind-buggeringly expensive movies James Cameron has been at the forefront of developing 3D technology for IMAX amongst others and has clearly learned a thing or two for Avatar is the movie which at last has the third dimension as its servant rather than its master. It is used to great effect to immerse the viewer in the forests of Pandora rather than to shove them in your face. The imagery is beautiful and rather reminiscent of Roger Dean progressive rock album covers come to life, the aliens are believably rendered (with the possible exception of their flawless dentistry). Mouths move like mouths rather than performing slightly artificial morphs between one expression and another. The beautifully realised world is a truly absorbing experience. It's also not headache inducing.
Less 3 dimensional, however, are the people and the plot. There's not a lot new here. Nasty company blows away tree hugging aliens to get hold of their Unobtainium (oh please!). It's all very pink and blue: the clichéd goodies are supergood and the even more clichéd baddies are superbad. Think Emerald Forest meets Aliens and you're just about there. Company man Parker Selfridge was pretty much Carter Burke from Aliens all over again (so much so that I had to convince myself on a couple of occasions that he wasn't being played by Paul Reiser), the ever marvellous Sigourney could well have been channelling Ellen Ripley, the one-man fighting machines were a bad-ass revision from the good old "get away from her you bitch" days and just for good measure there's a Gorman-alike too. Despite all this, however, Avatar does manage to pack a couple of bang-on emotional punches.
In summary, Avatar is not the best film ever, or even this year, but it's an overwhelming spectacle with a bit of heart and highly recommended to anyone who can just switch off and go along for the ride. (Just don't sit too close to the screen if you see it in 3D)