Review: Avatar

What's this? Two new movies in a month?? Incredible things are happening! Namely, the post theater is getting movies I actually want to see on the big screen, and showing them at a time I can get there. That's pretty incredible, actually! This time it's Avatar, which we only saw last night, to that's why the review is Tuesday not Monday this week :)

Plot: One of these incredibly hyped movies of the past few months, so it'll be just a few sentences for those few who haven't kept up on recent releases. Jake Sully is a paraplegic former Marine who is transported to the far away planet of Pandora, inhabited by the Na'vi race (very tall blue humanoids). Pandora is a rich undeveloped world holding promising wealth in natural resources. Jake is filling in on a mission following the death of his brother, who was supposed to participate in research on Pandora as part of the Avatar program. The Avatars are Na'vi-human hybrids which link to a human driver, like a remote control, so that humans can move about the planet and interact with the native Na'vi. Jake gets pulled into conflicts arising from the differing goals of researcher Grace Augustine, corporate miner Parker Selfridge, and militant security head Quartich. And of course, falls in love with beautiful Neytiri, a Na'vi princess. Tested loyalties, life-changing decisions, and epic battles follow.

The acting was pretty decent. I like Sigourney Weaver. She plays a good strong, intelligent heroine, so it's always nice to see her on screen. And Sam Worthington is looking like a good lead actor in the making. Another reason I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and see the new Clash of the Titans, I suppose :)

The only real objection we (Zach and I) had in the casting was Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, the bureaucrat in charge of all the human operations on Pandora. Not that he did a bad job - actually he plays the spineless, weak and rather oily characters pretty well - but he just looks too young for the character. He's about 36 himself, and has those big eyes and round cheeks so he looks even younger. To be in charge of such a big operation, all the mining and research and security and support personnel, he just needed to be a bit older. And there are plenty of oily, spineless, weak character actors in the 45-55 age range who would have suited the role a bit better. Not a major objection, but it really did strike both Zach and I each time his character came on screen, "Is this guy really old enough for this job?"

The story was completely unoriginal. As Anne put it, "It's Fern Gully with a budget." The human male, the female from the race in touch with Nature and who will take over as spiritual leader of the tribe, the evil human invaders bent on destruction of the trees that the female's race hold sacred. Even the male from the native race who is supposed to pair with the female and thus views the human as a rival but eventually comes to accept him. And the "twists" that come along are all tapped out fully. Like riding the red pterodactyl thing (whose Na'vi name I'm not even going to try to spell here!). Anyone who didn't see that coming is either under the age of 13 (and below the age rating for the movie anyway) or fully subscribes to the I-completely-turn-off-my-mind-to-watch-movies school of thought. And no, I'm not even going to put that way down below as a spoiler, it was that well foreshadowed! :)

There were several parts of the movie that were... well, irritating. The prayers and such for a creature killed in a hunt were focused on, but when hundreds of Na'vi die in the battles and such, it's all kind of glossed over. Seemed odd. And the anti-militaristic vibe was incredibly heavy-handed, almost comical at times how it was soooo over-the-top. I realize that Hollywood almost seems to be running out of villains sometimes, the way they focus on the military. Any soldier/Marine/futuristic military member is either the pure-hearted hero with the letter to send back to Ma and Pa on the farm during the last climactic battle, or a maniacal power-hungry nutcase bent on world destruction. But, as Zach and I were talking about after the movie, the strong military with imperialist policies (even if only commercial imperialism and not actual colonies) will always provide opportunities for villainy in stories. Goes back to ancient Greece, and will continue as long as there is any imbalance in power or situation. Human nature. It was very interesting watching the movie in an on-post theater, where there were a bunch of folk watching the film in uniform, and wondering what they were thinking of it.

But really, no one is watching this movie for plot. It's all about the visuals! That huge budget they were working with was certainly put to use. Pure eye candy! I loved the dusk scenes personally, all the dark blues and greens with the glowing bugs and plants there for contrast. Very pretty. And the detail is incredible. Like seeing pupils dilate when the Na'vi join with any of the animals, or when the human drivers are pulled out of their avatars back into the human bodies. It's a subtle detail that makes it seem much more realistic. This movie did right what frustrated me so in Beowulf - a good acting cast put to use even with the CGI animation. The Beowulf animation left the facial expressions less, well, expressive. These animated characters were much more detailed in that respect. And the detail in the surroundings as well, even down to leave blown up when the birds or planes or whatever land or take off. Very detailed. And the fact that it's a lush, beautiful world that they are designing doesn't hurt :)

Funny thing about the visuals, too - better fight choreography than in the average live-action movie nowadays! The creators were obviously so proud of their work that they didn't do all of the cut-scene fight filming the way so many live action movies are done nowadays (Bourne 2 and 3, anyone?). I did get a little tired of the stag leaps that the Na'vi kept doing, but other than that it was really nice to was clearer animated fights in this movie than in many live-action movies that have come out recently. :)

Overall: 4 of 5. Unoriginal story and heavy-handed message wrapped in visually stunning and technically marvelous package. Overall, fun but don't expect too much thought or surprise - just let your eyes enjoy! Would love to see the extras on the DVD about how it was all done :)