Avatar (2009)

It’s been 12 long years since James Cameron released a film amid rampant rumors and speculation.  Problems during production, epic length, groundbreaking visual effects, the most expensive movie ever made, doomed to failure — the buzz intensified until Titanic finally opened and shattered all expectations, becoming the worldwide box office champion and tying the records for Academy Awards and nominations.  Now the question is, can the self-proclaimed “king of the world” do it all again with Avatar, the most anticipated film of the season?

It remains to be seen if Cameron can repeat history at the box office and the awards ceremonies, but if he doesn’t reach similar heights, it’s not for lack of trying.  He’s relying on past history with his screenplay, which borrows heavily from one of his previous films.  Fortunately, that film is Aliens, so at least he’s stealing from the best. (Let us not forget that Titanic received 14 Oscar nominations, but its screenplay was ignored.)

Avatar begins with a paraplegic Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) arriving, after a five-year journey in cryogenic sleep, on the planet Pandora.  A place that many on Earth have heard of but few will ever see, Pandora features spectacularly lush jungles and terrain, a toxic atmosphere, ferocious wildlife, and the Na’vi, a race of blue-skinned natives, ten feet tall, and, according to Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), “very hard to kill.”  The military presence is necessary to protect operations for a company mining a highly valuable mineral, and also for the Avatar program, an attempt to interact with and educate the Na’vi populace.

This program involves placing a subject in suspended animation and connecting his consciousness to a genetically compatible “avatar” Na’vi body, enabling them to “pilot” the avatar and interact with the world of Pandora.  Jake is on Pandora because his brother trained three years for the Avatar program but was killed in a street crime on Earth.  Jake is genetically compatible with his brother’s avatar, but has not been through any training, raising the sarcastic hackles of Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), leader of the program.

Jake takes to life as a Na’vi avatar with awkward zeal, appreciating the use of legs once again, even if they are longer than usual.  On his first recon mission into the jungle, he’s separated from the other avatars and the chopper pilot (Michelle Rodriguez) transporting them, and forced to survive the night alone.  He’s rescued from a nocturnal animal attack by Neytiri (Zoë Saldana), daughter of the chief of the local Na’vi clan.  He’s initially met with anger and distrust by the rest of the clan, but under Neytiri’s tutelage he grows to become a warrior of the Na’vi — and an increasingly reluctant source of insider information for the military and corporate factions who want to invade and defoliate the most sacred Na’vi sites.

The core of the film is essentially Dances With Wolves on acid, as “Jakesully” goes native and learns the intricate circle of life, both flora and fauna, of Pandora.  He’s  challenged and tested by the Na’vi chief, Eytukan (Wes Studi), Neytiri’s mother (CCH Pounder), and the lead warrior, Tsu’tey (Laz Alonso).  After being accepted by natives and native animals alike, he has to turn and fight the human warriors he once served with.

When not echoing the environmental, “love thy native everything” message of Costner’s western, the film piles on the parallels to Aliens, from the presence of Sigourney Weaver (who needlessly smokes and whose Na’vi avatar incongruously wears a Stanford shirt) to the space Marines, the brave Hispanic female soldier, the human-operated lifter robots, and Giovanni Ribisi taking Paul Reiser’s place as the smartass corporate flack.

However, what one might perceive as unoriginality may also be construed as a base of familiar territory on which to frame an eye-popping adventure tale with revolutionary visual effects.  Inspired by the seamless rendition of Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings, Cameron brought in Peter Jackson’s effects studio Weta to create a wildly colorful world of stunning landscapes and amazing creatures and plants.  The swooping camera movements, vivid colors and lighting are dazzling, but perhaps the most startling effects achievement is the completely realistic rendition of the blue-skinned Na’vi. Their movements are natural and their facial expressions, modeled upon the individual actors voicing them, are remarkably fluid and believable enough to suspend the realization that they’re computer generated characters.  You’ve never seen anything quite like this before, and, at a running time of over two and a half hours, you get to see quite a lot, especially in 3D.

Cameron is already at work on his next film, Battle Angel, currently scheduled for release in 2011.  The buzz on that one is underway, thanks to the groundwork he’s laying with Avatar’s visual tour de force.   It may have been 12 long years, but now we know James Cameron didn’t go down with the Titanic…he’s been looking up at the stars.

See what other people thought of Avatar on Amazon. Buy something while you’re there, and we make a tiny referral fee too.