Avatar (2009 review)

4 out of 5

After a more than a decade, James Cameron returns to fiction filmmaking with Avatar.  There is the inevitable comparison to Aliens because it’s a Cameron film about marines vs. aliens, but that’s unfair because Aliens is one of the greatest goddamn movies of all time and Avatar . . . isn’t.  This is not Aliens, it’s not Terminator 2, and it’s not The Abyss.  But it’s still great.  Middle-of-the-road James Cameron is a fantastic movie from anybody else. 

In Avatar, crippled marine Jake (Sam Worthington) travels to the planet Pandora which is being mined by humans for precious resources.  Jake is a member of Project Avatar, headed by the scientist Grace (Sigourney Weaver), a technology that transports the consciousness of a person to an alien body.  On Pandora, the humans battle with the indigenous alien natives, the Na’vi, and Jake is sent to spy on them.  With the bloodthirsty military man Quaritch itching to blow the creatures away, Jake learns about the alien culture from a Na’vi woman (Zoe Saldana), soon believing he may be on the wrong side.

While computer generated effects may always have a telltale plastic sheen no matter how many render and texture passes it goes through, there are simply too many details with CGI that would be impossible with practical effects.  Filled with multi-limbed alien creatures, Pandora is a bioluminescent forest that glows in the dark with bursts of light when touched.  There are robotic power suits that correspond to every twitch of the driver’s commands like a second skin.  This wasn’t possible in movies years ago.  As a demo reel for how far computer animation has come in the past two decades, Avatar is glorious.  

The film’s political and environmental allegories are a bit on the nose and references to the Iraq war and terrorism are slightly heavy handed.  But sometimes effective; when a forest is devastated, Cameron deliberately evokes images of 9/11 for disturbing effect.  Burke in Aliens was positively subtle compared to the hammy greed lust of Giovanni Ribisi as the mining colony director who burns alien forest for profit.   Ribisi, possibly in an attempt to sound corporate, delivers dialogue like his mouth is full of cotton.

Cameron movies generally have better acting than standard action fare.  The most fun is the deliciously evil Colonel Quaritch played by Stephen Lang.  He clearly loves shooting the Na’vi and has numerous moments of kick ass, like when the Na’vi blow up his expensive ship and all it does is piss him off.  Sam Worthington is a sturdy lead who shows moments of depth, but his character in Terminator Salvation was more interesting.  Reuniting with Cameron for the first time since Aliens, Sigourney Weaver is gruffly entertaining as she chain-smokes her way as a human and is ecstatic when she’s an avatar.  Her greatest scene is when she sees the Na’vi sacred realm and says, in spite of her dire situation, “I’ve got to take some samples.”  Possibly the best performance is Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) who, through FX wizardry, is turned into a blue alien.  Saldana has moments of animalistic ferocity that remind you of how dangerous the Na’vi can be, but she conveys a lot of emotion for an actor who technically isn’t on screen. 

Cameron’s scripts are usually very funny despite the dark subject matter, but Avatar is only mildly amusing.  Dialogue here is bit awkward and none of it will live on like “Game over, man!” from Aliens or “Hasta la vista, baby,” from Terminator 2.  Things threaten to get a little hokey when Cameron gets too close Na’vi culture with all chanting and ceremonial dancing. His stories are usually pretty original, but Avatar has a basic “cultured person goes native” plot from Dances With Wolves and The Last Samuari.  There is nothing surprising about the movie’s plot progression, but that isn’t its appeal.

That appeal is the visual effects, especially in 3D.  Eventually newfangled 3D TVs will hit stores, and Avatar is going to be playing on an endless loop on them.  Every single shot has a clear depth of field as Cameron keeps it immersive.   There are bugs, flames, and ash that float through the frame to give it a sense of layers.  Avatar’s climatic war between the Na’vi and the human army would be intense even without the 3D.  As with practically all 3D movies, when the camera or the edits move too fast there is a “swimming” effect which can be distracting, but Cameron uses wide shots so we can take in the visuals.  This deserves to be seen in theatres in its digital 3D format.

Avatar is a bit overlong but never dull with such impressive filmmaking skill.  Even with a simple story that is sometimes sappy, the astounding amount of imagination poured into the Pandoran world is mind boggling.  Propelled by James Horner’s score, Cameron’s spectacular third act is one of the largest scale cinematic battles ever, with lizard birds vs. futuristic airplanes in the sky and a gritty robot vs. avatar fight on the ground.  Modern spectacle filmmaking has never looked this good.  Or this blue.