Extraordinary? Yes! Revolutionary? No...

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2009)

Just came from the morning screening of Avatar on opening day in Brisbane...
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. The effects are completely photo real! The 3D is sensational! The Na'vi performances are scarily authentic! But let's not dwell on that because everyone else is gushing on those points. Let's talk about the problems, because they are there...
First, the story. There's nothing really wrong with the story. Jake (Sam Worthington) infiltrates an alien race using his avatar to provide intelligence and to convince them to move as they rest on a valuable mineral deposit. He learns their customs and falls in love with one of them and is forced to choose between honoring his contract or defending his new friends. The story is well structured and well paced - despite running for three hours - but there are no surprises. You know that Jake's loyalty will be challenged and that gun-happy Col Quaritch (Stephen Lang) will declare war on the native tribe. It's great to watch it unfold but I can't help but wish for more suspense in not knowing what would happen...
Second, the performances. Neytiri is a fantastic character and Zoe Saldana plays her perfectly. She is strong and wise, yet vulnerable and feminine. She is also surprisingly hot for a non-human. She is the heart of the film. Stephen Lang provides the balls as Quaritch. He is one tough son of a b*tch in this movie and Lang's great voice and physique really sell that this is a character you don't want to enrage. However, everyone else is only average. Sam Worthington was fine as a leading man and some of his awkward attempts to integrate into the tribe are great, but he's not very engaging on an emotional level. Sigourney Weaver doesn't really do anything to justify her casting - her role could have been played by any middle-aged woman.
Third, the 3D... now for 99.5% of the film, it's beautiful and perfect. But every now and then, objects in the extreme foreground seemed to lose the 3D effect and become the "I'm seeing double" effect you would get if you saw the film without the glasses. That was a little distracting... What was worse was the way we see the world. In wide shots, it's fine because we see the world in wide shots. However, in closeups where the depth of field is shallow, it looks unnatural. I think this is because we don't see the world in a telephoto lens or with such a narrow depth of field. And while the brain is convinced of the 3D effect, you can't get focus on the background and that irritated my eyes a little.
Now this is by no means a bad film. It is a fantastic film. On a cinematic level, the world Cameron presents is so real and so organic that you can't help but get drawn into it. You are convinced that this world exists. For the first time since Jurassic Park, I actually had to pinch myself to remember that those exterior locations are completely computer generated because they didn't just look realistic... they actually were real in my mind.
Lastly, I loved the themes in this film and how he depicts them in the story. I'm no Greenpeace activist, but I believe in generally keeping things natural and whilst I'm not religious, I do consider myself spiritual. James Cameron really impressed me as he deals with nature and spirituality-slash-mysticism in this film and manages to explain it through biology and chemistry rather than implying any sort of holy deity. For that I commend him as other films such as I am Legend have lost points for implying a specific religion when it should have been more generic... after all how do we know that it's God and not Allah or Buddha? Or Zeus? So kudos to Cameron for his decisions in the film.
The biggest hype about the film was that it was going to reinvent the way movies are made. I disagree. While the 3D enhances the experience of seeing this incredible world, it isn't essential. It's still like any other film that uses shot choices and editing so it isn't really anything new. It's certainly a step forward for the industry, but it isn't the leap they were hoping for.