Avatar is the story of Lieutenant John Dunbar who moves to the Dakota Territory during the Civil War and becomes friends with the Native American tribe in the area. He ultimately marries the daughter of the tribe's chief and leads his tribe to a small victory in a battle against the American Army. Wait - that's not it... Oh, right - it's the story of Marlow, a sailor who is asked by his country to go up the Congo River to look into the actions of a crazy man named Kurtz. Wait - again, that's not it. Oh golly - oh right! It's the story of a hacker named Neo who goes into the Matrix, a reality below our own reality, and becomes *The One* for the people who live inside of it. They seem to be unable to take care of themselves, and despite talking like a surfer moron, he helps to liberate the people. Shoot - that's still not it.
OK - it is actually the story of how in the year 2154, there is a planet somewhere in the universe called Pandora where there is a special metal called 'unobtanium'. In order to mine it, a private contractor enlists the the U.S. Marines to secure the land from the thousands crazy alien animals that might come out to hurt the operation. Ex-marine Jake Sully is put into a scientific unit who is trying to help and learn from the giant blue humanoid people on this planet called the Na'vi. He is paralyzed from the waist down, but when he gets into a pod, he becomes an avatar - a Na'vi look-alike that can move in this world easier than a human can.
At some point he gets lost on a scientific mission and finds himself in the Na'vi world. He soon begins living with them and dating Neytiri, the daughter of the chief, who becomes his tutor for all things Na'vi. After some time, the mining operation wants to relocate, so it moves into the area where the Na'vi live. The natives, with the help of Jake, fight the humans in an effort to save their way of life.
This is one of the most over-hyped, over-reviewed worst movies of the year. There is basically nothing good about the film. The story is totally dumb and recycled, the writing is terrible with laughable dialogue. Lead actor Sam Worthington, as Jake, is a joke as an actor. The special effects of the film and the CGI settings of almost the whole thing are terrible - and the film looks worse than many other recent films (that were made for a much smaller budget).
It's been 12 years since writer/director James Cameron made Titanic - and I was under the impression that he had been working on this script for a long, long time. But what we get is a total rip-off of Dances with Wolves, Heart of Darkness and/or The Matrix. There is absolutely nothing new here plot-wise and nothing that is better than the originals it rips off. Every idea here is tired and every twist is predictable and visible from miles away. I mean, not to spoil the ending, but there is a Return of the Jedi-style Yub-Jub song and dance at the end.
Sam Worthington is terrible, clearly cast for his physical looks and muscle rather than his acting. He plays a dumb marine who doesn't know much when he arrives and doesn't grow all that much mentally throughout the story. Listening to him speak, it is hard not to laugh at how bad he is. (Also, curiously, in the second act, his looped-in voice over suddenly changes accents from American to Australian. Why this couldn't have been corrected is bizarre to me.)
Sigourney Weaver is much too overdone and comes off as too much of a bitch at the beginning of the film (she also asks for a cigarette in her first appearance... aren't we beyond that, James?). She seems basically unnecessary in the story as the scientific research she does seems to go out the window after the first sequence. Considering Jake had a better rapport with the Na'vi, it is unclear why she moves into their camp with him. (My favorite thing about her character is that in the avatar world, she wears a Stanford tank-top, as if the Na'vi would respect her more because of her top-level degree.)
At no point in the film did I think that I was in the world I was seeing onscreen - or that that world actually existed. It looks like a big animated world - not all that dissimilar from bad CGI one can find on many Saturday morning cartoons. The Na'vi look entirely animated - not even as good as Pixar toys or cars. This is a big problem as it was a constant cause of separation between the story and me. The Na'vi never felt like real things that I could sympathize with. They always looked to be animated, in a world filled with a few real-world things like humans and helicopters. I am told that this film cost several hundred million dollars to make - and that that money went into the technology and animation. But I don't see the results. To me it looks like any old CGI movie that could have been made 10 years ago. I don't get it.
On top of that, seeing it in 3D was frustrating because when you're wearing the glasses, you have to look exactly straight ahead or the picture will be out of focus. You cannot turn your head slightly and look out of the corner of your eye, for instance. In addition, you have to look at exactly what the filmmakers want you to look at. If they are focusing on something in the bottom right corner of the screen, but you are looking at the top center, what you are looking at is out of focus. I don't know why these faults are not getting more attention, but it was super frustrating for me. I think the 3D technology is not totally up to par yet. I also don't think it's worth the extra $3 to watch in 3D as I think the movie would have been just as good standard.
The most frustrating and insulting thing about the story is the tired suggestion that because they Na'vi are closer to the earth and more 'native' than we are, they are better. This is hackneyed and dumb. It's the old idea that Native Americans respect the land so they are better people or how Africans are more connected to the spiritual world. The Na'vi are all played by African-American actors, yet they seem rather Native American in their dress and ways. Of course, after telling us that more simple and spiritual is better, we then see the Na'vi using modern head-sets to communicated and machine guns to fire - because I guess human culture does have some good uses. Ugh.
This is really a total joke of a movie. Again - the ore they are trying to mind is called *unobtanium*. That's so beyond stupid it's insulting. This is a terrible script, it does not look half as good as it should and it absolutely 100% not fresh. What a waste!
Stars: .5 of 4
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But what did you think of it? In a few weeks, it'll become only the 5th film in history to gross more than $1 billion at the box office worldwide. And unlike the other four -- Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and The Dark Knight -- I have no idea why this one has such good word of mouth. I agree with everything, though I'm withholding judgment on Sam Worthington. Laurence Olivier would have been bad in this film and Sam was clearly asked to play a dumb lug. Sure he had no spark or charm, but I'll wait to see him in the flesh before writing him off.
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