A review that doesn't focus that much on the graphics

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2009)

So a lot has been said about the beauty of Avatar. I can't review this movie without talking about it. The movie is beautiful. It's like nothing you (or I) have ever seen before. The most stunning scenes are the night scenes in Pandora, where Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana... even in a blue suit she looks stunningly beautiful... she plays Uhura in J.J. Abram's Star Strek) are exploring the forests, the glowing pink and blue lights strike your eye and transport you into a world that only a genius can imagine. When Jake flies, we fly with him, and you definitely need to see this movie in 3d as it incorporates you into the action and makes you feel like you're right there. Apart from praising James Cameron, I salute the art director and the special effects coordinator for such a magnificent job in creating Pandora, the attention to detail and computer animated action are well advanced for our time, and even if in the trailers it look like a smurfs computer game, in the movie theatre we forget all that and live in a world where humans live among the Na'vi side by side. Or can they?
Even if the movie looks like the 400 million dollars (or whatever the figure is, I searched box office guru and it's not available), all that money can't buy you a good story. And Cameron presents us a good story indeed – nothing over the top or completely innovative (he is not Tarantino), but a good standard story. The film deals with a paraplegic marine who is sent to Pandora to investigate the Na'vi and learn their ways so a big corporation can get some kind of rock that costs 20 million a kilo. Jake gets his own Avatar, and learns the ways of the Na'vi after his life gets saved by Neytiri. He works for the science department, but it is no spoiler to say that the army is also interested in this "tribe" as they pose a threat to the American capitalist enterprise. Put a marine in between two distinct ideologies, and chaos occurs. And that's what Avatar is about. Plot sound familiar? Yeah its Dances with wolves set in the space and in the year 2154. And less boring. The final 30 minutes are amazing. They are action filled and visually stunning, they provide not one but two climaxes to this story, and left me open mouthed the whole last act.
Now, because the story is not incredible, and the characters are nothing we haven't seen before (Sigourney Weaver even plays a persona from before, we saw the same character in Aliens), the story falls flat in some parts, especially towards an hour and half in, and is predictable. The dialogue is also very cliché, my favourite line is: "We are going to fight terror... with terror", and the acting is not that great. The message of the film (which is a green one) is pounded on your head a little too much, there are several lines in the story that side with being environmentally friendly and anti-capitalistic, a little too much for anyone. In the terror line many people in the audience laughed (including me) as its intention is so bluntly obvious: to be an anti-war propaganda. Now the film is not propaganda, its a metaphor for something bigger, but I can't go into it without spoiling the film.
Yet, after seeing all the flaws of the film, my question is: does that matter? Cameron is not trying to be Payne or Diablo Cody or Reitman (just to name contemporary), he is trying to astound you with his film-making abilities. This film is supposed to make you fall in love with movies again, to make you drool at the spectacles and make you want to be in Pandora. The film has a political, social, environmental, and even existential resonance, but what really matters to Cameron is that you have a good time. And to me that makes this one of the best films of the year. It managed to state a powerful message (sometimes a little too strongly) while amazing us until the very end. Yes, the film's story is not perfect, neither is the writing or pace, but it sure as hell is good, and even enough so to make this a strong contestant for the best picture Oscar. It is not a masterpiece – it is a landmark in cinema. Nothing has ever compared, and until Cameron makes his next film nothing will.
PS: People say it's our generation's Star Wars. In a technical sense, its more innovative than Star Wars was in the 70s. In a story sense, unfortunately it can't compare. Star wars was about becoming a hero, fatherhood, family and more importantly the goodness in all of us. Those themes resonate with everyone in a personal level. Darth Vader is also a villain who brought the definition of evil to a whole new level. Avatar tries to state more of a social commentary. It is a movie about the world we live in, and human's identity, but it is not Star Wars. Maybe if more time is spend dealing with the personal dilemmas of Jake in the sequels can this movie even begin to compare. But until then, Star Wars wins by a landslide.
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