Movie: Avatar
Director: James Cameron
Written By: James Cameron
Run Time: 2 hours 41 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
OK, I need to get this out of the way first. My overall lack of impressiveness of 3D DOES factor into my verdict of Avatar. It's impossible for it not to. The movie has been touted as one of the major advancements in making 3D a viable format for creating movies in and, as such, makes it the main format to watch it in. And since I am still not fully sold on 3D, believing it to be a grandiose waste of everybody's time since it simply distracts from the film at hand, this was always going to give a negative impact on my enjoyment. But let's not dwell on 3D, I'll write about that at a later date. Once my glasses stop being embedded into my skull.
So then, Avatar. James Cameron has a lot riding on this. The man who gave us Terminator, Aliens, True Lies, The Abyss and Terminator 2 has exiled himself for the last decade after giving us Titanic, a movie that literally caused me to vomit on more than one occasion. Having spent this decade doing Jean Michel Cousteau's job, he's back with Dances With Sm... sorry... Avatar, a film that has a budget that totals higher than that of the gross domestic product of Ghana and Kenya combined and with expectation levels on the same sort of seriousness as those for Star Wars: Episode One. But does Avatar meet those expectations?
In short: not really. But it's still a good time at the movies, nonetheless.
The plot revolves around Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a crippled Marine who enlists in the Avatar programme on the planet Pandora. You see, Earth's energy economy is in tatters (ooh, how current!) and these mineral rich doodads called (and I shit you not here) Unobtainium which are the key to solving all of Earth's problems are buried underneath the surface of Pandora. The only thing that stands between them and the mineral are the Na'vi, the blue skinned natives of Pandora who don't take too kindly to the humans mining their planet. The Avatars are half human half Na'vi hybrids who are assigned to gain the trust of the Na'vi and force them out. Jake, however, falls in love with a Na'vi girl called Neytiri (Zoe Salanda) and the Na'vi culture which soon forces him to question where his loyalties lie.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the basic plot and, yes, it's a story you've heard countless times before. But that's alright. For the last few years, Hollywood has been built on stealing and re-using ideas. Hell, they were going to make a movie out of Mark Ecko's Getting Up at one point for Christ's sake! So even if it has got the same basic plot as Dances With Wolves, there's plenty of opportunity for it to change up the formula and add something new.
Too bad it doesn't. This plot is insultingly predictable. There are no real twists, no real additions. It's as basic as they come which sadly made me care a lot less about the characters than I could've because I knew one hour before the end exactly what was going to happen.
It is a real shame because the acting ranges from good to superb. Sam Worthington is a very captivating hero able to convey a multitude of emotions at once. Zoe Salanda makes a fine love interest even when her crying sounds more like a constipated whale. Sigorney Weaver is interesting but at times slightly annoying as another scientist alongside Jake. Stephen Lang is well cast as the main-ish villain from which apparently nothing can kill him. But the weak link is Michelle Rodriguez who plays the same type of bad girl role she does in almost every movie she's ever been in and is only relevent and important in one section of the film's nearly 3 hour run time which makes it hard to care for her.
The film looks incredible. The huge sprawling vistas of Pandora and the wildlife that inhabit it are like nothing you've ever seen before. The night time scenes are without a shadow of a doubt the best looking with gorgeous colours and flickers of light dancing around the screen. Add in the quite often hard to tell apart CG and human characters and the visuals overall are like nature spunking in your mouth. The only time when there are problems visual wise, and there are, involves the poorly photoshopped humans inside CG mech suits when you're looking from the outside in. The stiff, jagged feel pulls you out of Pandora instantly. No Avatar shutdown needed.
But it is time that I come face to face with my main issue with Avatar and that is the much touted 3D. I promise that I will write about 3D at a later date but allow me to give you the bullet points. Before going into Avatar I was unsold on 3D. I find it a nuisense that adds nothing to movies in general. It doesn't suck you in, it doesn't improve a bad movie or make a great film shit, it does nothing. Well I'm delighted to say that after seeing Avatar my opinion on 3D has not altered in the slightest.
The movie does have a few cool scenes that look impressive and make clever use of the 3D tech, but they are few and very very very very very far between. Up used 3D as a way of giving depth to the film and a sense of position. Avatar rarely uses that, at least from what my lazy eyes can see. Midway through the movie I stopped noticing the 3D. This is exactly what I like about 3D, when it's not used for stupid 4th wall breaking bullshit in cheap slasher movies, but it's exactly why 3D shouldn't be needed in the first place. Nothing that 3D brings to the table can't be done in standard movies. All it needs is a little tinkering and a bit more care and attention to detail in order to suck you into the universe. That's it. Why waste so much time and money on a process that will add absolutely nothing to a movie except maybe give the gimmick crowd something to gawp at for a few minutes?
So it looks great and has some very good performances but is let down by an insultingly simplistic and predictable story and 3D bullshit. Why am I recommending you to go see this again? Because Avatar needs to be experienced. Reading these words and watching the trailers are not going to help you formulate a full opinion of the movie. I have no idea why I didn't enjoy this movie all that much. Maybe every reviewer and person who has seen this are fed a gas which makes them perceive glittery lights as on par with the Second Coming and me and my Dad are the only people immune to it. I don't know. But I do know that I am happy that I experienced it. I'm happy I sat down and watched this movie instead of spending my whole life wondering what this movie would've been like in it's natural habitat. Because, come on folks, we all know when it comes to DVD the 3D will be shit.
In summary, Avatar is a very good film. Not good enough to be great, but not bad enough to be just average. It's just a good film. Nothing more, nothing less. On the James Cameron Scale it is far better than Titanic but then again a barrel of sick was better than Titanic. However; Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss and the mighty Terminator 2 have absolutely nothing to worry about.
3 out of 5.
Director: James Cameron
Written By: James Cameron
Run Time: 2 hours 41 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
OK, I need to get this out of the way first. My overall lack of impressiveness of 3D DOES factor into my verdict of Avatar. It's impossible for it not to. The movie has been touted as one of the major advancements in making 3D a viable format for creating movies in and, as such, makes it the main format to watch it in. And since I am still not fully sold on 3D, believing it to be a grandiose waste of everybody's time since it simply distracts from the film at hand, this was always going to give a negative impact on my enjoyment. But let's not dwell on 3D, I'll write about that at a later date. Once my glasses stop being embedded into my skull.
So then, Avatar. James Cameron has a lot riding on this. The man who gave us Terminator, Aliens, True Lies, The Abyss and Terminator 2 has exiled himself for the last decade after giving us Titanic, a movie that literally caused me to vomit on more than one occasion. Having spent this decade doing Jean Michel Cousteau's job, he's back with Dances With Sm... sorry... Avatar, a film that has a budget that totals higher than that of the gross domestic product of Ghana and Kenya combined and with expectation levels on the same sort of seriousness as those for Star Wars: Episode One. But does Avatar meet those expectations?
In short: not really. But it's still a good time at the movies, nonetheless.
The plot revolves around Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a crippled Marine who enlists in the Avatar programme on the planet Pandora. You see, Earth's energy economy is in tatters (ooh, how current!) and these mineral rich doodads called (and I shit you not here) Unobtainium which are the key to solving all of Earth's problems are buried underneath the surface of Pandora. The only thing that stands between them and the mineral are the Na'vi, the blue skinned natives of Pandora who don't take too kindly to the humans mining their planet. The Avatars are half human half Na'vi hybrids who are assigned to gain the trust of the Na'vi and force them out. Jake, however, falls in love with a Na'vi girl called Neytiri (Zoe Salanda) and the Na'vi culture which soon forces him to question where his loyalties lie.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the basic plot and, yes, it's a story you've heard countless times before. But that's alright. For the last few years, Hollywood has been built on stealing and re-using ideas. Hell, they were going to make a movie out of Mark Ecko's Getting Up at one point for Christ's sake! So even if it has got the same basic plot as Dances With Wolves, there's plenty of opportunity for it to change up the formula and add something new.
Too bad it doesn't. This plot is insultingly predictable. There are no real twists, no real additions. It's as basic as they come which sadly made me care a lot less about the characters than I could've because I knew one hour before the end exactly what was going to happen.
It is a real shame because the acting ranges from good to superb. Sam Worthington is a very captivating hero able to convey a multitude of emotions at once. Zoe Salanda makes a fine love interest even when her crying sounds more like a constipated whale. Sigorney Weaver is interesting but at times slightly annoying as another scientist alongside Jake. Stephen Lang is well cast as the main-ish villain from which apparently nothing can kill him. But the weak link is Michelle Rodriguez who plays the same type of bad girl role she does in almost every movie she's ever been in and is only relevent and important in one section of the film's nearly 3 hour run time which makes it hard to care for her.
The film looks incredible. The huge sprawling vistas of Pandora and the wildlife that inhabit it are like nothing you've ever seen before. The night time scenes are without a shadow of a doubt the best looking with gorgeous colours and flickers of light dancing around the screen. Add in the quite often hard to tell apart CG and human characters and the visuals overall are like nature spunking in your mouth. The only time when there are problems visual wise, and there are, involves the poorly photoshopped humans inside CG mech suits when you're looking from the outside in. The stiff, jagged feel pulls you out of Pandora instantly. No Avatar shutdown needed.
But it is time that I come face to face with my main issue with Avatar and that is the much touted 3D. I promise that I will write about 3D at a later date but allow me to give you the bullet points. Before going into Avatar I was unsold on 3D. I find it a nuisense that adds nothing to movies in general. It doesn't suck you in, it doesn't improve a bad movie or make a great film shit, it does nothing. Well I'm delighted to say that after seeing Avatar my opinion on 3D has not altered in the slightest.
The movie does have a few cool scenes that look impressive and make clever use of the 3D tech, but they are few and very very very very very far between. Up used 3D as a way of giving depth to the film and a sense of position. Avatar rarely uses that, at least from what my lazy eyes can see. Midway through the movie I stopped noticing the 3D. This is exactly what I like about 3D, when it's not used for stupid 4th wall breaking bullshit in cheap slasher movies, but it's exactly why 3D shouldn't be needed in the first place. Nothing that 3D brings to the table can't be done in standard movies. All it needs is a little tinkering and a bit more care and attention to detail in order to suck you into the universe. That's it. Why waste so much time and money on a process that will add absolutely nothing to a movie except maybe give the gimmick crowd something to gawp at for a few minutes?
So it looks great and has some very good performances but is let down by an insultingly simplistic and predictable story and 3D bullshit. Why am I recommending you to go see this again? Because Avatar needs to be experienced. Reading these words and watching the trailers are not going to help you formulate a full opinion of the movie. I have no idea why I didn't enjoy this movie all that much. Maybe every reviewer and person who has seen this are fed a gas which makes them perceive glittery lights as on par with the Second Coming and me and my Dad are the only people immune to it. I don't know. But I do know that I am happy that I experienced it. I'm happy I sat down and watched this movie instead of spending my whole life wondering what this movie would've been like in it's natural habitat. Because, come on folks, we all know when it comes to DVD the 3D will be shit.
In summary, Avatar is a very good film. Not good enough to be great, but not bad enough to be just average. It's just a good film. Nothing more, nothing less. On the James Cameron Scale it is far better than Titanic but then again a barrel of sick was better than Titanic. However; Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss and the mighty Terminator 2 have absolutely nothing to worry about.
3 out of 5.
