No less than Steven Spielberg called Avatar, "The most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since 'Star Wars'." And he's right. Avatar is a game changer. It is truly a movie unlike any other. A game changer for 3D and motion pictures on a global scale.
The world that James Cameron has created is mindblowing in its detail. Every tree, leaf, flower, mountain and creature, and even the ground has been thought about and fully realized. The true genius in the movie is the emotional depth of the Na'vi, the humanoids who inhabit the world of Pandora. With their large eyes and long faces, I have never seen such realistic aliens rendered with such an emotional range. And therein lies the genius. In order for the movie to work, the audience has to believe these are really humanoid aliens. That's why both Hulk movies didn't work with audiences. The Hulk was so poorly rendered as a digital creature that the audience couldn't form an emotional connection to the Hulk. So as an audience member, you didn't care about what happened to him as a creature. The Hulk was more caricature than character. Not so with Avatar. Their lips looked like human lips, their eyelids looked human. The movie is 3/4 aliens on Pandora and 1/4 humans in a their futuristic environment. And to pull off a movie like that truly shows that James Cameron is visionary director unlike any other director currently working in the 21st century. Every single dollar of the $350 million that was spent is up there on the screen. I always think it is so pretentious when any director is quoted as saying, "I had to wait for technology to catch up with my genius mind and ideas for this movie to be made." This is the first time I have found that statement to be true.
And while the movie is action packed and visually stunning, Avatar is a very predictable movie. Every plot twist and turn is telegraphed way ahead of time. It's like Titanic all over again - you know the ship is going to sink. With Avatar, you know what's going to happen a long time before it occurs and exactly how the movie is going to end. Although their is plenty of magic in the world of the movie, the script is formulaic and with a paint by numbers quality to it. That doesn't mean it's not a good movie, but the fact that you know everything that's coming up does take away from some of the enjoyment of the film. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen, it definitely should. Expect to get carried away in the film to a world unlike any other, but as far as story goes - cinematicly "going native" has been done better on film ("Dances With Wolves").
My only other criticism of the film is that the bad guys in the film are the humans, us. As an audience member, it put me in the very awkward position of routing against my own species. It was bizarre to hear other audience members (not me) cheering when the humans were being attacked and killed. (Then again, I did see the movie with a Floridian audience.....).
And yes, the film had a very timely eco-friendly, environmental message to it. But the audacity of the film is that Americans always root for the natives. And that's strange. The U.S. is always the aggressor with the superior technology and overwhelming firepower, and yet, we always cheer for the underdogs. It's a strange dichotomy.
That said, go see Avatar in 3D. It's unlike anything you've ever seen before.
No comments:
Post a Comment