A visual extravaganza

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2009)

Well, here it is.
James Cameron's project has been hyped to within an inch of its proverbial life over the years, what with the epic budget, alleged re-inventing of special effects and some admittedly underwhelming trailers full of conspicuously computer-generated blue elves. The question that's burning in everybody's mind leading up to its release this week is: Is it really that great? The answer: pretty much, yeah. But more on that in a bit.
For those of you who haven't heard the story, the plot revolves around paraplegic marine Sully (Sam Worthington), who's offered a second chance at life on the lush alien planet of Pandora. The humans on the planet are engaged in a war with the native population, blue humanoid warriors known as the Na'vi, over extremely valuable natural resources. To this end, a handful of scientists (led by a delightfully taciturn Sigourney Weaver) have created an "avatar" project where people control cloned Na'vi in order to get close to the tribes and work something out. Through a cruel twist of fate, Sully ends up controlling one such avatar and from there the story well and truly begins.
Now, where do I start with Avatar? The film's a lot of things, but it's obviously not perfect, and I'm not sure whether to address its flaws or good points first. Something tells me I'll go with the flaws first. It's hard to judge them too objectively - it all depends on just how tolerant you can be. I'd probably say the film's worst flaw also plays a huge part in defining just how good (or bad) the film is. I refer of course to the film's copious use of CGI characters. This is a problem that I think will depend on the viewer. Either you're going to find it horribly distracting the whole way through or get used to it after about five minutes. I reckon this is something that is up to every viewer to decide. Myself - I fall into the latter camp. Just as well, because that could very well be the major deciding point in how to judge the film, if only because Avatar is saturated with CGI. Not like that's a bad thing, as a lot of the CGI looks very flash. Avatar's look is pretty damned impressive, all things considered. Between the lush locations, slick gadgetry and veritable cornucopia of action available, I can hardly see how the film's abundance of CGI is a problem. It definitely aims high and hits its mark a lot.
With that main issue out of the way, the rest of the film manages to be considerably strong a lot of the time. Once the story gets going, it stays riveting for much of its lengthy runtime. It's well-written, even if one of the central metaphors seems a little too obvious (powerful corporation attacking harmless natives over valuable resources - not exactly subtle) and it managed to keep reasonably surprising all the way to the end. The acting was by and large good; Worthington doesn't exactly shine as the hero, but he performs reasonably well. The highlight is probably Weaver, although there's something to be said for Stephen Lang's battle-scarred colonel, who makes up for a general lack of character dimension with relative ease.
The real question remains as to just how great Avatar is. It's definitely an amazing epic in spite of its few flaws and relative lack of originality, so it's admittedly far from perfect. It remains by and large a visual extravaganza if nothing else, and should deserve consideration for one of the better blockbusters of the year (if not necessarily one of the best films). Depending on your expectations, it either wasn't quite as great as it could have been or it was far superior. If you had mixed expectations like I did, it's probably a mix of both. Avatar remains a technically great piece, a bit lightweight in parts, but overall pretty damned good. I'll definitely be checking this out in 3-D, anyway.