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| A Na'vi in Avatar |
James Cameron is not a filmmaker who does things by halves. As the trailer for Avatar reminds us - in big, bold, blue letters – he has previously made Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic (understandably missing out Piranha Part 2: The Spawning if it’s tagline ‘The terror is back...but this time it flies!’ is anything to go by). The reported $300 million it cost just makes it another addition to his many expensive movies.
Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, a wheelchair-bound ex-marine who gets the opportunity to visit the distant planet Pandora on a mission originally planned for his cleverer brother, who is killed before shipping out. He is linked to an avatar, a genetically grown half-human/half-Na’vi (Pandora’s humanoid race) and upon exploring the world, gets mixed up between the interests of the corporation, who want to mine the precious metal which lies under the Na’vi village, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who wants to go in all guns blazing, and the Na’vi themselves, which includes Neytiri (Zoe Saldena), who he takes rather a shine to.
Visually, Avatar is very original and – overall – outstanding. Nearly 60% of the film is computer generated and it is all very impressive (whether there will be cracks in the digital seams 10 or 20 years from now, it’s hard to say), but despite all that technology and, no doubt, hard work, I just wasn’t sucked in by it like I imagined I would be - even with it being 3-D. Hmm... 3-D...well, I was as unimpressed as usual. I still see it as a gimmick, perhaps better suited to gaming, and at times I did find myself thinking ‘That would be a lovely shot if these bloody glasses weren’t in the way.’
The script was much less original than the visuals and surprisingly clichéd in places. It’s as if the CGI had taken so much effort, Cameron couldn’t really be arsed to go above and beyond with the basic plot points. I liked the sentiment, that all nature is connected and the army and greedy corporation are the bad guys, etcetera, etcetera, but it seemed a bit forced and over sentimental.
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| Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon in Avatar |
Worthington plays his protagonist role well enough, but I found his narration was another part of the lazy writing. The rest of the cast are good, especially Weaver, a scientist trying to use the avatar’s to find a diplomatic solution with the Na’vi. Stephen Lang is also quality and is very entertaining, despite being a slightly clichéd villain.
Perhaps it was all too much to take in on first viewing, perhaps I was looking forward to it too much, perhaps I would prefer it in 2-D. But the fact remains, Avatar was, although far from bad, a huge disappointment - however, I do seem to be in the minority with that opinion.
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