Avatar

To say there's been a lot of hype surrounding the film Avatar would be putting it very, very mildly. Interestingly enough, the most commonly heard tag line promoting the experience, "Nothing will ever be same" is the same over the top bravado printed onto the souvenir sweatshirts handed out as favors at my cousin Harrison's Bar Mitzvah party a few years back. Here, as it was in that case I believe it's a tad of an overstatement. That said, the film is still a staggering example of technical and artistic achievement - which thankfully James Cameron doesn't ruin with a completely horrible story.

The tale is pretty straightforward. In the future (around 2154 I believe) humankind has made their way across the universe without managing to shed neither our irony when naming things nor our worst instincts of corporate imperialism. The film takes place on the planet Pandora where corporate interests have taken up residence to mine for the (what did you expect when you named it that) element Unobtanium (which is some sort of magic superconductor - not that it really matters). Life on this planet is hard - everything is dazzlingly beautiful though has a tendency to want to kill you (insert your own model/sparkly vampire joke here). In the mix are the local humanoids, the Na'vi who are blue, very tall (10-12 ft) and deeply in tune with nature. They're not super fond of the human interlopers either. The corporation trying to keep bad publicity down is temporarily resisting the urge to kill them all while attempting to negotiate with one of their clans for mining rights. Seems their home rests inconveniently atop one of the richer veins of the mineral of interest. As part of these diplomatic efforts the earth folk have produced artificial Na'vi (aka Avatars) who can be remotely controlled by human operators. Our hero Jake is an ex-marine who has lost the use of his legs. These avatars are grown as a genetic match to a single person. When his twin brother dies suddenly he's given an opportunity to go to Pandora in his place. Lured by the change and the possibility to make enough money for the operation to restore his ability to walk Jake makes the trip.

When Jake arrives on Pandora he's provided basic local training and heads out into the field. Before you know it he falls ass backwards into an opportunity to immerse himself with the local Na'vi tribe. During this immersion he's supposed to be spying for the human interlopers but he's gradually seduced by the world and the Na'vi's nature loving ways. In the eyes of his chain of command that means he's "gone native." This only turns out to be a problem because the humans are even worse than your standard caricature of military industrial complex evil - ready to kill freely to get what they want, without even the subtly of handing the villagers smallpox enriched blankets.

In case you've been in a media free cave I should mention that Cameron has been working on this film for a very, very long time. A ton of money has been spent on it and its been designed from the ground up to be in 3D. Thankfully you can see all that money up on the screen. The "world" that Cameron and company have created is visually rich and impressive. With any number of new animals and fauna it's truly something to behold. Technically it's a major triumph of computer graphics animation - huge parts of the film are computer rendered and it's extremely hard to tell what's real and what's not. The Na'vi are especially mind boggling. They're clearly not actors in suits, but there's a realism (without being creepy) that allows for individual "performances" without you feeling as though this is a very expensive cartoon. My ability to describe is way below the iridescent fantasy work that's been created - you do want to see this while it's still on the large screen.

As mentioned the movie is in 3D, though there are theaters showing it in the more traditional 2D format. I'm not entirely convinced that seeing it in 3D adds that much to the movie going experience beyond the occasional head pain when things don't fully sync up with your brain. By the end I'd gotten used to it and able to appreciate the 3D effects without explicitly noticing them. It's just that the imagery might have been just as beautiful and impressive without it. In short I don't think every movie really needs to be in 3D, and I hope we're not heading in that direction. But Cameron uses it well and avoids the worst abuses of the form, most notably things are not constantly flying off the screen and at your head.

So visually, this thing is off the charts. But what about the story? Well, there things are a little less than stellar. It's relatively stock sci-fi material with a love story between Jake and a native princess (much like in past live situations no one ever seems to fall in love with the hired help). The one with nature, Native American tending towards New Age vibe is less than subtle - deeply carving it's way through the story. As written this certainly makes sense for the plot. I think it's just that the extremes of good and evil presented in the film are at the level of Star Wars simplification that keeps this from being the film of the decade the hype machine was predicting. Much as though no one worried when they were blowing up the Death Star about innocent blue collar tradesmen working on the construction project (credit owed to Kevin Smith) we're completely encouraged to be 100% on the side of the Na'vi regardless as to the outcome to the humans involved. Every once in a while the depth of the simplification pulled me slighlty out of the story.

This is of course entertainment (and nothing wrong in my book with the green message) and I don't really ding the film much for the lack of shades of grey in its moral universe. Cameron's last film was Titanic and this film exhibits dialog and emotional range similar to (if somethimes short of ) that blockbuster. Which for me means I occasionally groaned, but then often was still sucked in by it. And then I groaned again. I strongly suspect repeat viewings of the dialog would not be kind to my perception of the film's story and acting core.

All said and done, it's a very solid piece of entertainment. Not the second coming of the messiah, but I suspect they'd charge more for that. So I do seriously recommend seeing it and not on video. Just don't expect Shakespeare coupled with the (soon to be) award winning visuals and I think you'll have a fine old time. For all the differences you'll definitely recognize this universe. Gotta love the part that even on Pandora showing up with a sweet, pimped out ride goes a long way towards getting the girl.

Though why he has to end this film with a song that sounds like a clone of the one from the end of Titanic is beyond me. So anyway - just go see it - just do me a favor and leave your infant at home. At least two people at the screening I went to didn't heed that basic rule of etiquette, and it was not appreciated by those around them.