A hi-tech and Visually Stunning Space Adventure Story

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2009)

What is it with James Cameron's penchant for only using titles that begin with the letters 'T' and 'A'? We've already had The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic and now he's gone straight back to 'A' again with 'Avatar'. But then Avatar is an 'A' movie in more ways than one.
Watching it, one could easily assume that the seeds for Avatar were sown in Cameron's head in 1989 upon the release of Dances With Wolves. As Cameron gazed at the epic scope of the western epic, he could easily have thought: 'Now why hasn't anybody set this story in space?' Thus, the synopsis of Avatar could be summarized almost identically: a soldier - Jake Sully - sent by the military to infiltrate the alien Na'vi race, falls in love with Neytiri - a native alien girl - and proves his metal to her people by becoming a warrior just like them, before finally 'going native' and joining them in battle against the very military power who sent him on the mission in the first place. We also get similar mystical overtones about being 'one with nature'. Similarly the Na'vi tribe in this movie is quite obviously based on the plight of both the Native Americans and the Africans.
The familiarity of the story does not in any way detract from its entertainment value. If anything, maybe it enhances it. But Avatar is still exhilarating and exciting stuff. Visually, it's unlike anything you have ever seen before. What the movie lacks in originality, it makes up for with ideas: Avatar is simply brimming with them. Cameron's imagination is let loose on this movie in a way unseen in any of his other movies. The world of Pandora is vivid and beautiful. The animals we see have a fantastical – yet somehow feasible – quality about them. It's almost as if evolution on Pandora - rather than the filmmakers - has designed these creatures for the harsh, unforgiving terrain that they occupy.
Avatar and Roland Emmerich's 2012 came out within a month of each other. While both are big, epic, state of the art special effects movies, it must be pointed out that the CG work on display in Avatar is vastly superior to that on offer in 2012: at no point – unlike 2012 – does the visual effects ever betray their origins. The Na'vi aliens are as photo realistic as anything ever seen. While there could definitely be an argument made that the film makers could have settled for a better design than the one they eventually went with, it's a testament to the realistic motion capture that you quickly accept them as living beings and don't question their realism. Anyone unfamiliar with the movie could easily assume they are all actors wearing make-up appliances – it's that good. And you know the filmmakers did a competent job when you actually believe that the Jake Sully character could actually fall in love with the strangely beguiling and attractive alien, Neytiri.
It's undeniably an auteur's work from start to finish. Cameron's stamp is all over every frame. He even borrows liberally from his own back catalog, reusing the S.Q.U.I.D. technology concept from Strange Days (which he wrote) in a similar vein in that Jake Sully is 'plugged in' and experiencing life inside another being. Though Cameron must have surely pulled his hair out when he saw a similar conceit used in The Matrix in 1999 (Avatar was written in the early to mid 90s). We even see bipedal armored 'suits' worn by their human pilots, which are not too dissimilar to the Power Loader worn by Sigourney Weaver in Aliens (and who's also present in Avatar). Coincidentally a similar version of these machines can also be seen in the third Matrix sequel, The Matrix Revolutions!
Sound-wise, the movie is just as astounding as it is visually, though it has to be said it seemed the sound designer 'borrowed' a few effects from the sound library created for Jurassic Park: one of the creatures makes a coughing/barking noise not too unlike the Velociraptor in the scene where the two kids are being stalked in the kitchen. On another occasion, a creature lets out a roar like that of the T-Rex during the attack on the two tour vehicles in the same movie. But these are just observations on what has to be one of the loudest mixes ever heard.
Anyone who's expecting a barrage of objects to be hurled continuously at the screen will be sorely disappointed. Cameron's use of the 3D process is, for the most part, very subtle. And this is precisely what reveals the double-edged sword 3D really is: if you're not going to have 'stuff coming at ya' in 3D, then you'd have to ask yourself does it really need to be 3D to begin with? Furthermore, if stuff is flying off the screen at regular intervals, then it turns what should be entertainment derived from the drama of a movie into 'a waiting for the next object to be thrown' experience. Maybe that's why 3D is more suited to horror movies. Cameron obviously knows this and is so keen to avoid the 'gimmick' tag he avoids the temptation to hurl stuff at us.
It could be argued that Avatar is both a sales pitch and a 'proof-of-concept' demonstration on the merits of 3D by Cameron to the general movie going audience. Perhaps the simplified nature of the story even adds credence to this notion. But he is undeniably sincere in his efforts. It's clear he believes so thoroughly in the 3D approach that he admirably avoids giving us a bloated and pretentious Star Wars Episode 1 rerun and settles for a straightforward adventure story instead. Avatar is superior even to his own Titanic. Only James Cameron could up the levels of cinematic spectacle in such a bombastic way.