Dances with Na'vi

Rating: 4/10 (15 March 2011)

It's hard not to like James Cameron, after all he's a director who exploded onto the cinema scene in the 1980s when he directed the Terminator, on a cheap budget of 7 million dollars and made it one hell of a ride. Since then he's gone onto direct blockbusters such as Aliens, the Abyss, Terminator 2 and the record breaking Titanic. Each one of these films landmarks in the development of CGI. This is because Cameron is the kind of director who follows the rule that CGI should be used as a tool to support the story, not as a gimmick like so many other blockbuster films.
After Titanic was released in 1997, Cameron dropped out of the public eye to begin developing the technology for his new film Avatar. Cameron made it clear that he wanted to make the nearly 90% of the film CGI with motion capture performances in CGI environments. Last but not least, he wanted the film to be filmed in 3D Stereoscopic film. The hype was flying. Could it really be? The king of special effects (and the world) was now touching a struggling technology? Would Avatar be the landmark film for 3D? So after 12 years of work, Avatar is finally here and the question is, is it any good? Not really.
Avatar tells the story of Jack Sully, a paralyzed marine who is hired by a corporation working on the planet Pandora to participate in the Avatar program. The Avatar program is designed to help humans survive Pandora's environment and communicate with the locals of a tribe called the Na'vi. The program works by hooking the human mind up to an artificially grown Na'vi body created from the humans DNA, allowing the Na'vi to spring to life while its human counterpart sleeps in a chamber. Jake's brother participated in the program until he was killed and Jake is the only person with matching DNA.
Naturally Jake accepts this as an opportunity to regain his ability to walk. He is given instructions by his superiors who are using the planet to mine for "unobtainium" to report them any information on where they might find it. He must also inform the Na'vi of upcoming mining operations.
*SPOILERS* Soon enough, Jake begins to meet and mingle with the locals who deride the humans for destroying much of their land and its spirits. Though Jake is initially met with hostility by the locals, he soon achieves acceptance and begins to appreciate Na'vi culture. Ultimately he is forced to making the Hollywood decision of choosing between the humans side or the Na'vi's, ultimately leading to an epic battle of nature vs man made.
If you think the plot sounds very familiar, its because you've either seen Pocahontas or Dances With Wolves. Both films were about Americans who are sent to deal with indigenous people who end up accepting him before he ultimately has to face the choice of betraying his culture or the indigenous tribes. Avatar basically just retells those stories with CGI and a different setting. But where as those films were brave enough to directly address the conflict between Americans and Native Americans, Avatar wimps out.
Even worse is the flat character development. None of the characters have any real depth and mostly stick to the bare bones archetypes like the American who appreciates adopting a new culture, the concerned Scientist who is always right but ignored by superiors, the skeptical tribe leader, the doomed love interest and the outright evil greedy humans. What exactly happened to the script in the 12 years this movie was being produced? Did Cameron even bother to at least write some character profiles? When making a film that's nearly three hours long, you need interesting characters to fill in the running time.
Much has been made about the films use of 3D and CGI, and as a first time 3D goer I can say that it was an interesting experience seeing things pop out of the screen. Some reviewers here said that the 3D here wasn't noticeable. I think this was Cameron's intention as to make it seem much more natural. Even in the 2D Blur Ray version, Cameron's understanding of how to use 3D a camera transcends across to 2D screens beautifully.However for 3D to enhance the Cinema experience it needs to be used in films, that tell good stories. Film makers need to remember that when making a 3D film, you still need a great story to support the experience.
While the story falters heavily, the films productions reigns supreme in every element of the art design and the language of the Na'vi. The world of Pandora does come alive, its just a shame that there isn't any interesting characters or narrative to accompany it.
When I left the cinema, I really wanted to like Avatar for its special effects and production values but as I thought more about it overtime, the more I felt bothered by the overly clichéd archetypes. Its ironic to say that a 3D film like this can't manage to have characters with more than one dimension. This is a shame because for all the effort that has clearly gone into the production, there is no story here to make Avatar worthwhile.
Avatar is a letdown from Cameron's previous exploits. But if Cameron uses the experience, he gained from its production, to make a film with a deep storyline and true flesh and blood characters. I'd let him reclaim his throne and become the "King of the world" again.