Too much hype can kill a movie.† Too much CGI can kill a movie just as easily, especially when it comes at the expense of things like believable characters and plot.† Thatís why, in the age of the summer blockbuster, itís nice to see a big-budget action movie that uses its impressive effects to enhance good storytelling, rather than to replace it.
James Cameronís ìAvatar” succeeds on this level, creating a compelling two hours of entertainment.† But itís not the grand masterpiece the major news sources seem to be saying it is ó and if you go in believing all the hype, youíll probably be disappointed.† The storyline is riddled with clichÈs and plot holes, and some of the characters feel kind of two-dimensional, but all of these were things that occurred to me after the movie was over.† While I was watching it, I was so swept up by the beauty and grandeur of it all that I didnít even notice them.
First, the part you already know ó the movie looks fantastic.† The Naívi are some of the most believable computer generated characters Iíve ever seen, especially their faces.† The technology that was used to translate actorís facial expressions to the CG creatures is very realistic. The plant and animal life of Pandora is also beautifully imagined, designed, and rendered, with creature that seem believable but still pretty alien.
The human machinery is a bit more boring and clichÈ, complete with anime-style giant mechs and helicopters which seemed directly descended from the modern American military.† But the familiarity of the machines helped create an emotional impact, and the contrast they presented with the creature-based warfare of the Naívi was kind of a need visual summary of the movieís major themes.
The acting was fairly high quality.† Aside from Steven Lang, who played his Colonel Quaritch like an over-the-top cartoon character, all of the filmís major actors turned in believable, interesting performances ó they felt more like real people than science fiction archetypes.† Well, the humans did, anyway.† The Naívi felt very stereotypical, but that was more the fault of the writers than the actors.
And now we get to the parts of the movie that bothered me.† The plot did seem like ìDances with Wolves” ñ in space!† Iíve also heard comparisons to ìPocahontas” and ìFern Gully.”† And while thereís nothing wrong with rehashing a plot ó all movies are rehashes on some level ó what bothered me was that ìAvatar” had several opportunities to go a different direction and distinguish itself from these films.
For example, the Naívi culture seemed like a hodge-podge of Native American and African sterotypes.† The coolest thing about them was that their ìconnection to the earth” was not just spiritual, but physical ó they could literally plug themselves into plants and animals to connect with them telepathically.† And the whole ecosystem was connected through a giant network of neurons.† That was a cool concept, but they didnít really do much with it.
And the whole plot had the same ideological problem as ìDances with Wolves,” of course, which is that itís an anti-colonial movie with a white (and, in this case more importantly, human) hero.† The implication being that while the nativesí culture might be beautiful and pure and all that, they can only escape from the evil colonialist white people byÖ having a white person lead them to victory. This is an old phenomenon which has to do with white guilt and the fact that colonial imperialists tend to buy a lot of movie tickets, but I still feel compelled to voice my disappointment about it.† But this is a movie review, not an editorial, so I wonít go into more detail about that.
The filmís other message, the one about conservation and living in harmony with nature, came through much better, and again, I loved how the harmony with nature was taken so literally ó thatís one advantage science fiction offers over a historical setting, and it was used quite expertly.