What were my expectations of “Avatar?” I don’t know. Whatever they were, they were too high, an unattainable level of excellence for an unproven technology in the hands of a capable, yet questionable director. So did James Cameron meet my expectations? Just about.
“Avatar” is a visual wonder with the story, the style and the spectacle to place it all in context. It’s use of 3-D and the facial recognition technology is inherently convincing and in its stunning perfection will likely change the way fantasy, action blockbusters are made. James Cameron has invested an estimated $300 million into his first project since “Titanic” 12 years ago, and every painstaking hour of work and dollar spent shows up on that screen in what is by far the most visually busy and yet remarkable feature of the year.
The film follows crippled ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) to the distant moon Pandora, where humans are hunting for a valuable mineral after Earth has long been extinguished of its natural resources. Located on top of the largest mineral cache is a tribe of the native Na’vi, 12-foot-tall blue humanoids that co-exist with nature. Jake has been enlisted to work with Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) in the Avatar program. Dr. Augustine has created hybrids of humans and Na’vi that can be telepathically controlled by their human counterparts, and she hopes exploring the planet will allow for scientific research as well as a diplomatic solution with the Na’vi. However, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) has employed Jake, given his military background, to infiltrate the Na’vi and convince them to relocate. On his mission, Jake falls in love with the Na’vi lifestyle, Pandora’s nature and one of the locals, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana).
As a story, it goes where you would expect it to, but “Avatar” is still wholly original. Its characters are invested with a rich background and personality, and as this epic progresses away from the explorative fantasy to the massive “Lord of the Rings” style battle, there are lives, rich histories and morals at stake. We care for the heroes, the outcome and even the planet itself. As a Na’vi, Jake can transcend the limits of both his body and mind, and his affection for Neytiri is real and sincere. Dr. Augustine has been working her whole life on this project. And Neytiri has such a love for the plants and animals on Pandora to the point we can see it in her eyes.
And when I say we can see it in her eyes, we really can. Cameron’s use of facial recognition technology, the same that Robert Zemeckis has been tinkering with for the last few years, has finally been perfected in the Na’vi. There is no question in our minds that these creatures exist and that their emotions are genuine. Cameron loses nothing in the translation between the computer, the camera and the solid performances of Worthington, Saldana and Weaver.
As much as the facial features make “Avatar” come alive, the 3-D cinematics are the real life force. I said earlier this year that “Coraline” is the best film to ever incorporate 3-D because of the way such a film fills the screen with vivid details. It now falls in at a close second, because all of Cameron’s locales and landscapes are abundant with life and activity, from the crowded and bright human control rooms, the exotic and verdant rainforest that lights up as the Na’vi traverse it and the mass gathering of winged banshees amidst the floating mountains of Pandora.
And yet everything is where it should be; nothing is out of place and everything can be seen and admired. Cameron flies in the face of the Michael Bay School of Spastic Cinematography and allows us to admire all the effort that has gone in to making a film this gorgeous. He enchants the audience with elegant flight sequences, an impressively synchronized native ceremony and the awe-inducing power of enormous destruction. Through his visuals, Cameron gives his otherwise generic and insipid dialogue life and color.
Good thing too, because even with much of his effort focused on the spectacle and the technology, Cameron still finds time to inject his screenplay with political sentiments. Like “WALL-E” before it, “Avatar” stands firmly in defense of the environment against humanity’s wasteful actions and habits towards nature. Cameron’s Na’vi are less Smurfs and more Native Americans in the way they are being forced off their land. There are even several lines that smack of a direct attack on Bush-era Iraq war policy. Col. Quaritch at one point says, “We’re gonna fight terror with more terror,” and Jake describes the military’s tactics as, “If there’s something we want, we make whoever has it our enemy in order to justify going in and getting it.” I half expected a “Mission Accomplished” banner to show up.
Politics aside, “Mission Accomplished” is an accurate description of “Avatar.” It has been a work in progress for over a decade and has overcome skepticism of all sorts to succeed as a purely magical form of entertainment. Cameron, the King of the World, has proven once again that the movies can be awesome.
4 stars