Avatar (2009): The Movie, The Hype, The Review

Fair warning sugar-junkies, this review contains some spoilers; nothing that I think would ruin the experience of seeing the movie (I only summarize the first hour or so), but if you want a wholly clean review where there's opinions given without any plot synopsis, this is NOT the place to look.

It’s not very often that a movie is hyped to epic proportions before its release solely on the basis of the man BEHIND the camera (though to be fair, when a movie is hyped purely by who appears on the screen, especially in the case of some sort of all-star ensemble, it usually sucks). Sure, there’s Spielberg but even he comes out with the occasional dud (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull anyone?) and Scorsese’s films have begun to pale in comparison to his earlier work. Also, in general, these men (and others such as Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Zemeckis, George Lucas, etc) have large bodies of work and few (if any) complete wastes of time. Then we have James Cameron. Piranha II, his directorial debut, is as much a waste of time as its title suggests and should be avoided like the plague, and the man has only directed eight feature films in the 28 years between his debut film and today. Even Peter Jackson, who isn’t exactly a directing-machine is on pace to direct something like fourteen films in twenty –eight years. It’s a reasonable question to ask just exactly WHAT Cameron has been up to for those 28 years…

If you believe Cameron, he spent ten of those 28 years working on one film, Avatar (I’m not sure how much I believe that…wading through the marketing bullcrap and factual information can be a bit of a pain; but that’s his story and he’s sticking to it). Perhaps that fact hits the nail closest to the head on why Avatar has received so much hype; when a filmmaker who has made some of the highest-grossing films ever spends ten years working on his first science fiction film (the genre that made him famous in the first place) since the early-1990s and is called a revolutionary picture that will change the way movies are made forever and the best film from the director ever (never mind the fact that it was the egotistical director himself making those statements), then a movie is GOING to get hyped. But will it live up to that hype?

The story, such as it is (or isn’t) is as follows: Jake Sully our main character wakes up after five-plus years of cryo-sleep on his trip to an alien-world called Pandora. He is there because his brother was involved in something called The Avatar Program, and due to them being twins and having the same sets of genomes, Jake can fill in for his now-deceased brother. The Avatar Program exists because Pandora is the only known place in the universe to find a rare mineral known as unobtainium (the fact that a name like unobtainium is being thrown around with a straight face should let you in on the fact that this movie is not the most intelligently scripted film of the year; why not just call it ‘difficultofindium,’ ‘rarium,’ or ‘awesomium’?) and the natives of Pandora, a race known as the Na’vi are not to keen on man using their planet like a stripe-mine. Thus, avatars were bred from Na’vi/human DNA splicing so human controllers could walk around looking like Na’vi in order to infiltrate their villages and establish some sense of trust between the two groups. In other words, humans want to shake the Na’vi’s hand with one hand and punch them square in the face with another.

The above paragraph is essentially all you need to know plot-wise about Avatar in order to figure out nearly every single plot twist and turn along the way of this extremely predictable film, but just for kicks, and since I always attempt to do the best job possible in my reviews, I’ll flesh it out a bit more.

Jake (Sam Worthington of Terminator Salvation and the forthcoming Clash of the Titans remake) is only accepted into the avatar program by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver, the original female action hero from Alien and Ghostbusters, who’s serviceable in this movie but at times seems to be mailing it in) because Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi – Public Enemies and Saving Private Ryan), the Pandora representative of RDA Company (aka, Really Devilish American company, because every corporate entity is EVIL; remember that, kids) has basically told her to use him or nobody because there’s no way they are going to get the money needed to train anybody new AND breed a new Avatar just on ONE person’s account. Jake’s an ex-marine (although in one of the better touches of character development in the film, Jake reminds us that there is no such thing as an EX-marine) who lost the use of his legs…somehow…and is largely pumped to be in The Avatar Program when he finds that through his avatar he can walk again. He’s also planning, with the help of Col. Quaritch (The Men who Stare at Goats’ Stephen Lang) to relay useful strategic intel on the Na’vi back to the military arm of the human operations on Pandora so that the inevitable attack on the Na’vi can be leaned as far in favor of the humans as possible.

(PS If you don't know who Shary Bobbins is...CLICK IT) Grace ultimately catches wind of the regular talks between Jake and Quaritch and as such, she has the members of The Avatar Program relocate to a remote location so that Jake’s contact with Quaritch is limited at best.

Meanwhile, Jake has been accepted by the Na’vi people into their warrior/hunter training program after Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, Star Trek 2009’s Uhura, who shows a complete lack of emotional range, even for a fully CG-rendered character), the heir-apparent to the shaman-like position of holiness among the Na’vi who has also been monitoring and following Jake, believes she has been given a sign from Eywa, the Na’vi deity, that he has a strong heart. It’s also kind of a “let’s see” for the Na’vi people as a whole. Jake introduces himself as a former warrior, so they aim to put his claim to the ultimate test and find out just how strong his warrior-spirit is (my oh my, if this doesn’t sound quite a bit like Dances with Wolves…).

Jake and Neytiri fall in love, but when RDA decides the time for diplomacy is over and they NEED to get the unobtainium NOW…well: Jake has to decide whether to tell his love that he has (at least in-name if not in-fact) secretly been an agent working AGAINST her and her people all along while simultaneously deciding where his allegiances lie and a battle of epic proportions is looming between the Na’vi and the human contingent on Pandora but will the arrow-shooting, horse-riding Na’vi stand a chance against the gun-toting cowboys…I mean, American military…I mean, white supremacists (seriously, find me ONE person who’s aligned on the ‘bad’ side that’s of a different ethnicity than white Anglo-Saxon)…I mean, humans?

We’ve got some problems here. Let’s start with the film itself before I start ripping James Cameron for being the most egotistical man alive (except for perhaps Roland Emmerich) and I’m hounded by fans of Avatar for only disliking its director and presenting no good arguments against the film itself. The story is simplistic. Like, REALLY simplistic. Like, “a movie enthusiast will probably figure out the entire plot about halfway through” simplistic. There are no shades of gray in this movie beyond those of Jake Sully himself.

The corporation and the humans are EVIL (Quaritch specifically) and the Na’vi are good. It’s so black and white that only ONE human being in the entire film does anything heroic in their human body and not their Na’vi avatar. In general, only the Na’vi are evidently ALLOWED to do anything kind-hearted, a sort of heavy-handed, “America sucks” attitude that grates on my nerves. Sure, you could look at the movie as a cowboys and Indians parable or (perhaps more accurately, considering the phrase “Shock and awe” is actually used) equate it to the much more recent events of the Iraq War, and fans of the movie will support it as being the greatest thing in the history of cinema for having so many “layers” but when every single layer of a movie and every single interpretation says the same thing (that the predominantly white upper class corporate world and big government is EVIL) then can you really make the claim that it’s multi-layered?

I’ve heard of an original scripment of the film where the Na’vi are far more aggressive (going so far as to STRIKE FIRST and be the main cause of human attacks) that, in my opinion, would have added an excellent shade of gray to the movie (there’s a link to a discussion of the original scripment in the LINKS section, but for the uninitiated, CLICK HERE - fair warning, SPOILERS ABOUND). Having a Na’vi pre-emptively attack the invading humans wouldn’t make them EVIL, or lessen the EVIL of the invaders, it would just make them more REAL. If they attack first, they are simply defending their territory, but also pose an actual threat to the human operations and serve some motive behind the heavy-handed approach the humans are willing to take. Instead, the movie opts to depict the Na’vi as so gentle and kind-hearted that it’s almost hard to believe they even have a hunter/warrior class at all.

I’ve already touched on my problems with the acting, in particular the soullessness of Zoe Saldana, but I’d also like to add on the acting front that a lot of the bit-players got on my nerves. The script calls for our human bit-parts to be essentially clones of Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens and while they say all the right lines (I can only imagine how many fanboys had to change their shorts when the line, “Come on! Yeah! Oh you want some of this?” was uttered), they do so without ANY of the passion, emotion, or borderline snarky sarcasm that Paxton says them with in the far superior source-film.

I'd also like to add that I think the alien designs in District 9 are generally better since they are more alien in appearance...but I get why they are as easily accessible and less "alien" looking here...

Now I believe I’ll lambast Cameron. Clearly, he isn’t able to get the best performances out of his actors and he definitely fell into the “look how shiny this is” trap on this movie. As I mentioned above, he actually puts in lines straight from the mouths of the marines of Aliens, but doesn’t bother to have them said RIGHT, just said. He knows that the target audience of this film will recognize those lines and gleefully fangasm at their mere utterance, and that’s all he’s aiming for. He leaves a lot of Pandora unexplained, which is fine by me (I enjoy a bit of whimsy and wonder) but I also feel like he didn’t explain things to his actors either and they deliver a lot of their lines as though they are not certain they are delivering the RIGHT line.

Cameron’s also an egomaniac. He’s on record saying such things as, “[Avatar] makes Titanic look like a picnic,” and has claimed it is going to revolutionize the film world; he even went so far as to declare the day the first preview hit “Avatar Day.” I guess that’s neither here nor there, but it could go a long way to explain why the movie feels so heavy-handed and preachy. Though Cameron has said, and may actually BELIEVE that his mission is simply to entertain and not to preach, his track record shows that he pretty much thinks his opinion is more worthwhile than yours or mine anyway.

That said, perhaps he has reason to be. With the exception of Pirhana II and True Lies, every single one of his movies is of fairly large historical significance in the cinema world. The Abyss was one of the first movies to convincingly use computer-generated effects and Titanic (in addition to pulling in HUGE amounts of money and Oscars) is world-renown for the attention to detail in recreation of the cruise ship. Let’s not forget this man also established the Terminator franchise, introduced all-time special effects MASTER Stan Winston to the world at large, and while Terminator 2 may be a cliché ridden huge dumb action movie, it ESTABLISHED a lot of those clichés and created some of the most memorable effects sequences in the history of film. Still, making a few good movies isn’t license to be a complete butthead (and I eagerly await the inevitable comments below where I will be reminded that REVIEWING a few good movies gives yours truly even less of a license to be a complete butthead)

Here’s the part where I admit a basic truth: I am being overly harsh in my appraisal. Visually, this film floored me. I was left nearly breathless by the sweeping scenery of Pandora and the amount of detail that went into crafting an entire world. It’s also a triumph of CG effects work, easily boasting the best looking computer graphics of any movie to date and some of the technology used in its filming actually MIGHT revolutionize the way films are made (some of the cameras they used to film it and the updated motion-capture for facial features stuff seemed REALLY interesting). Cameron is also able to do something MichaelBay could never DREAM of doing. He’s able to let us GAWK AT his effects. Rather than blitz us with constant motion (I know for a FACT that I wasn’t the only person confused as to who was fighting whom in end battle of Transformers), Cameron has enough confidence to just let his stare at everything and drink it all in. From that point, the movie is EXTREMELY refreshing. So much of movie making has become trying to TRICK people into thinking the effects were awesome, but Avatar delivers in spades on effects work.

Avatar is a difficult movie for me to analyze critically. On the one hand, the story is clichéd, the acting ranges all over the place from very good (Lang, Worthington, and occasionally Weaver) to hackneyed and emotionless (Saldana and many of the smaller-role people), and the dialogue is about as whimsically written as something Michael Bay would come up with (NOT a compliment); but on the other hand, the visuals are absolutely STUNNING, the level of detail that went into creating Pandora and making CERTAIN that one does not ever think or say “oh, that looks just like such and such a place on Earth,” is mind-blowing, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy my experience or if I said the three-hour run time seemed to crawl by. (How do you rate a movie that simultaneously entertained and disappointed you...that you can understand to some extent why people love it but you don't love it yourself?)

It’s even more difficult for me to rate because I feel like some of the innovations used here may actually revolutionize the film industry and when people look back ten years from now and say, “This motion-capture stuff is SO much easier than it was just ten years ago,” we will have Avatar and Cameron to thank for it. That said, I feel I should ask, does being the FIRST to do something mean it HAS to be considered one of the BEST? The Sex Pistols were practically the first punk band, but I think the Ramones blow them out of the water ANY day of the week. Historically significant and good are two totally different things (just watch Bride of Frankenstein for confirmation). Also, I’ve NEVER rated a movie based solely on one viewing. Even my review of the relatively new movie The Hangover came after repeat viewings and DVD release. I’ve only seen Avatar once and my thoughts on it are such a jumbled confusion of weighing the pros and cons that I feel as though I need to see the movie again in order to wrap my head around it. Perhaps that means it’s good; typically a movie that warrants multiple viewings (and that I actually am WILLING to view multiple times) is pretty good…but pretty good and “best movie ever” (as many people have come away from Avatar thinking, despite the fact that District 9 could lay better claim to the title in the science-fiction realm for 2009) are two EXTREMELY different things.

Final Rating below. I think time may look less favorably upon Avatar than my final rating does, and if you don’t see the movie in 3D I can almost guarantee you won’t be as floored as you could have been, but I’ll give credit where it’s due. I was entertained and the pioneering of new technologies allows me to overlook some of the movie's less glaring shortcomings and dismiss some of the movie's more glaring ones. My feelings toward it are all over the place, occasionally softening to the point where I think I LOVED it, occasionally becoming chillier than a winter’s morn in Buffalo…I think I would have liked for a more capable STORYTELLER to direct this movie. For a detailed explanation of my ratings system and a full index of all my reviews, just CLICK HERE.

The final rating in this case might be a not-so-final rating and may change after I've had multiple viewings...up or down half a sprinkle