Review: Avatar
I saw Avatar last week, and judging by the dollars that continue to pile up, I’m not the only one who didn’t rush out opening weekend.
Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am surprised it’s done anywhere near as well as it has. Having avoided the trailer, I saw only a few seconds of footage here and there, and what I saw didn’t impress me. Thought it would be another manufactured tentpole hit without much behind it. Thought Cameron’s ego would have swallowed his talent whole leaving nothing but some blue creatures patrolling around.
Wrong! Happily wrong.
I was absolutely impressed by Avatar. Just incredible. The kind of revolutionary moviewatching experience that doesn’t happen often. Jurassic Park was like that, and I saw a lot of that movie in this one. I also saw in it A Bug’s Life (blue creatures going about their lives around a huge tree), The Lion King (the learning montages, general forest revelry) and The Matrix (simultaneous levels of experience, one arguably as real as the other, but not quite). I did see it in 3D, which is the way to see it, but I didn’t see it in IMAX, which is just too much screen for me.
I do agree with the idea I’ve heard that James Cameron should win Best Director honors at the Academy Awards. Even if there are better movies out there, and I think there are, he’s the MVP for his project, having done more to realize more. Nothing against Tarantino, who made a wonderful movie (and killed Hitler), but my vote would go to Cameron.
It’s not all gravy, though. The shortcomings of his movie are obvious and numerous. Great directing, lackluster writing: flat jokes, dull dialogue, bad acting. Even Sigourney Weaver, as Grace in human form, can’t act her way past what’s been written for her. Giovanni Ribisi’s Jeremy Piven impression was adequate, since all he had to do was announce himself as a bad guy, and then tread water. Sam Worthington (ably understudied by Sean Avery) was earnest enough. (In the race between Ribisi’s Parker and Oliver Platt’s Mr. Anheuser from 2012, Platt’s character wins, for having more opportunity to be comic-book crazy. A separate race between Anheuser and the mother’s boyfriend in Rookie of the Year is too close to call.)
I was as pleased as hell to read the interview with James Cameron in Entertainment Weekly a couple of weeks back, when Cameron was up-front with his plain desire to make a movie that a lot of people would pay money to see. He succeeded, but he didn’t sell anyone short, and he didn’t make a movie that appealed to a lowest common denominator. It’s only broad insofar as it’s appealing to just about everyone who likes things that are fantastic and cool-looking. With audiences continuing to splinter and smaller films getting more recognition and praise, finally there’s a movie that brings moviegoers together again, surrending to the spectacle. If ever there were a movie to see in a theatre, this is it.
Oh, you’ve seen it already?
Oh, okay, then let’s continue with the discussion.
One odd question to start, one that kind of bothered me: When Sully finds his banshee – the one he has to tie up, get on the ground, and make his extremely personal connection with – he’s not raping that poor creature, in one way or another?
I must say I enjoyed the fight at the very end, between Jake Sully as a Na’vi and Colonel Quaritch in his robot suit from The Matrix Revolutions, for a couple of reasons. I like that each of the participants is in disguise, hiding behind technology somehow. It levels the playing field by making each rather super-human, but also calls attention to the already well-hammered conflict of the movie between, say, destructive technology and endangered biological life forms. I was also reminded of the fight between King Kong and the T-Rex in the original King Kong, in the forest, the film itself a landmark of visual effects.
I also liked a couple of moments with masks, playing up the title. When Grace dies after the transfusion doesn’t work, her mask is summarily taken off, echoing the shedding of her body by her soul. And, near the end when Neytiri finds Sully in the trailer struggling for air, she’s quick to put his mask on. It’s certainly to help him survive, but I think also because she’s used to seeing him in disguise, in another form. His “nakedness” is alarming. She’s in love with his soul, or whatever makes him who he is, but his human form at that point in their relationships doesn’t seem his natural state. That leads to the final switcheroo, the eyes opening, the percussion building, and… a comically cheesy end credits song. Terrible.
I am glad the parable moved on from being an allegory about the Middle East and oil and indigenous peoples to addressing the larger, worldly issue of, y’know, respecting our planet for the powerful and living creature she is. For a simplistic story on which to hang beautiful, vivid effects, there are worse choices for a moral. Sugar helps the medicine go down, anyway.
3.5 stars
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