Movie Review: Avatar

Actors: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Stephen Lang
Directors: James Cameron
Number of discs: 2
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Release Date: April 22, 2010
Run Time: 162 minutes

[Warning: Spoilers]

Avatar is a visually stunning, philosophically simplistic, feel-good action movie that is well-worth multiple viewings. Having left the theaters, many viewers were unable to return to Pandora until the recent Earth Day release of the DVD and Blu-Ray versions of the movie.

My first viewing of Avatar was the DVD version. I had not been able to see it in theatres, and so came to the movie having gained others opinions on its value, without yet being able to express my own. Now I can.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it summarizes like this. Humanity has found another planet, called Pandora, on which a race of sentient humanoids known as the Na’Vi resides. A company, working with the army, wants to relocate the Na’Vi off their ancestral land in order to mine unobtanium (an idiotic name that a script writer of Cameron’s caliber would have done well to revise). But the blue-skinned giant Na’Vi have a special bond with the land, a land which comprises something of a brain in and of itself and so will they not vacate as the humans wish. Into this rising tension walks Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine who takes his scientist brother’s place on the Avatar diplomatic mission. Sully must run an Avatar, a human/Na’Vi body that allows humanity to walk amongst the Na’Vi, speaking with an attempting to understand them. Jake soon finds himself embattled on two sides, and he must make a choice to stand for the Na’Vi or for his own people.

First, I found Avatar to be beautiful in terms of its effects. Seeing it in the flat-screen DVD version made me wish that I could have seen this movie in its 3-D version. It is so cinematically stunning in its computer image colors and textures that it made me wish for one of those new Samsung 3D Plasma HDTV. It well deserves its three Oscars for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects. In these three categories, the movie outshines all that has come before, and will become eh gold standard by which all other movies of its ilk will be judged. Avatar is one of those rare movies worth seeing just for its beautiful images and grandiose settings. The beauty of Pandora is both familiar and unfamiliar and viewers will be rapt with amazement at the envisioning. (Parents should be aware that this beauty includes tribal nudity, one implied sex scene, talk of “mating”, and bloody violence so would do well to preview the movie for younger viewers – the film is aptly rated PG-13). Since this Blu-Ray and DVD are not a 3-D version of the movie, those who saw it in 3-D will probably feel a let down on the cinematic, though even on a flat screen, the movie is still amazing.

Secondly, Cameron does some good things in terms of the mechanics of storytelling. He makes effective use of foreshadowing, subtly presenting situations and events which find a mirror in the final battle. Sully, and the beautiful warrior Neytiri (voice of Zoe Saldana) have a love relationship that echoes that of Cameron’s other epic film Titanic. Cameron makes love beautiful, believable and powerful. He also allows the antagonist Na’Vi character of Tsu’tey not to fall into the trap of being just a bully, giving him dimensionality and growth throughout the story. The Na’Vi characters are wonderful to behold, fascinating in their strangeness.

Where Cameron’s characterization fails is in his depiction of the humans. They are tired old tropes, being the evil company representative (Giovanni Ribisi) and the bent-on-revenge Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang). These two are stand-ins for all that Cameron finds evil in the human race, and as such he uses them atrociously as props for making a point, rather than anything truly human in character. In essence, the only beings who truly show any real personality are the Na’Vi and the scientists who are on their side, whereas all simply human characters are caricatures of evil and unjust men (and men only, I might add). Even the helicopter pilot (Michelle Rodriguez), the only non-Avatar user on the side of the Na’Vi, is flat in affect and character.

Plot holes also abound. It is never made clear if a death while in his Avatar body will kill his real body, yet one of the first scenes of Jake in his Avatar body is one of near death. There is some implication that one death would cause the other, but that is not evident. The helicopter pilot not being court-martialed or at least imprisoned for failing to fire on the “World Tree” home of the Na’Vi, and so being free to then release the imprisoned scientist and Sully to fight for the Na’Vi is a major gap in story. The shortage of electrical equipment necessary for the final battle, while foreshadowed and built in, was an obvious deus ex machina right from its introduction. These are easily glossed over, but they were questions left unanswered which bothered me right to the end of the movie.

Thirdly, Cameron’s story is a morality tale that is overly simplistic. The story is, in essence, Fern Gully for adults, where man and his modern machines are a threat to the way of life of a tribal culture. Like Jean Jacques Rousseau before him, Cameron falls into the philosophical trap of thinking that because a human is closer to nature, lives apparently in tune with it, that s/he is therefore morally superior. This is at best wishful thinking. Cameron’s political and moral points in this vein are delivered heavy-handedly and rigidly, telling rather than showing viewers what they must believe according to the doctrine of Cameron. While I don’t disagree with all of his points (and credit should be given for making Pandora’s “Gaia” spirit scientifically based) Cameron’s obvious opinions and poor apologetics make the cautionary aspects of the tale lack any real punch. Such parts are easily identified and dismissed by those who disagree, and those in agreement will simply nod their heads and pay more attention to the love story of Jake and Neytiri. If you want to see a movie that makes Cameron’s same point much more eloquently, you would be better served by watching the not much heralded Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within instead.

Finally, to end on a positive note, Cameron’s story does have a great underdog versus bully theme going. While I don’t agree with Cameron’s philosophy and found it morally simplistic, I could enjoy the action adventure drama if I simply ignored it and enjoyed Avatar for its story. I think what most viewers love about Avatar is not its environmental message. Rather, the success of the movie and its popularity among viewers is in its love story, visuals, epic battle-scenes in sky and on land, and common theme of the underdog standing up to the bully and winning. For these things, Avatar is a superb movie well-worth watching over and over again. Like Cameron’s other blockbuster Titanic visuals and love story make the work a ground-breaking piece of cinema that will be compared to, talked about and discussed for years to come.

The DVD version of Avatar currently available contains no special features. An insert into the DVD box gives buyers a code to use online to gain access to special content and a membership in the “Avatar Program” and a rebate of $25 for a Panasonic Blu-Ray player or entertainment system.

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