Editorial
Front Page - Friday, January 1, 2010
The Critic's Corner
David Laprad
I’m at a loss as to how to begin my review of “Avatar,” the new 3D science fiction film from writer and director James Cameron (“Aliens,” “Terminator 2,” “Titanic”). After staring at a blank document for several minutes, I felt compelled to start hitting keys, and that desperate act resulted in the previous sentence. It feels liberating to see something on the screen, even if it has nothing to do with the movie.
Or maybe it has everything to do with the movie. After seeing “Avatar,” I was speechless. When my wife asked me what I thought, I didn’t say the one word on my mind, because it seemed like the kind of thing a pimply-faced “Star Trek” geek would say.
But darn it, I’m going to say it now: “awesome.”
Where do I begin? With the story. “Avatar” is set on the moon of a distant planet. Called Pandora, the Earth-like world contains deposits of unobtainium, an element that can save an exhausted, overcrowded Earth. Instead of a mass global effort or even a military endeavor, a corporation has set up operations on Pandora, with the task of mining the unobtainium and shipping it home.
There’s a problem, though, and it will sound familiar to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of U.S. history: a race of blue-skinned, ten-foot tall natives lives on Pandora, and its biggest tribe has made its home on top of the richest deposit of unobtainium. Called the Na’vi, their way of life mirrors that of the Native Americans: they live in harmony with the land, taking only what they need and praying over their prey after making a kill.
As the movie opens, the corporation is brings in its latest round of grunts. Among them is Jake Scully, an ex-Marine who lost the use of his legs, presumably in battle. The corporation brought him to Pandora to take the place of his twin brother, who died before his tour began. Scully’s brother represented a significant investment on the part of the corporation, and the company intends to minimize its loses.
How? By assigning Scully to the Avatar program, in which the consciousness of a human is uploaded into an artificially grown Na’vi made from the combined DNA of the human and one of the natives. The corporation hopes the drivers will convince the natives to move, giving it access to the unobtainium.
If that doesn’t work, the company will set Colonel Quaritch loose on the natives. True to his name, Quaritch is “itching” for the day he can unleash his forces on the Na’vi. To get the intelligence he needs to be effective in battle, he asks Scully to get close to the natives and learn from the inside. What Quaritch didn’t count on, however, was Scully meeting and falling in love with a Na’vi female called Neytiri.
I’ve given you enough information to piece together the rest of the story. And make no mistake: “Avatar” tells a familiar story. Not only are there no surprises along the way, you’ll be writing the next scene in your head even as the current one is dancing across your eyeballs.
Just as iffy is the dialogue, which is clunkier than the lines Cameron wrote for “Titanic.” Scully says a lot of goofy things, but Cameron saves some real groaners for Quaritch, who says, “Come to papa” when he’s in the midst of a battle to the death.
Like the dialogue, many of the characters, including Scully and Quaritch, are one-dimensional. Scully says a few things about going to Pandora to earn his legs back, but I never sensed that he was a bad guy, so his switch in allegiance to the Na’vi didn’t surprise me. And there’s never any doubt that Quaritch is anything but pure evil.
There are also problems with the logic of the story, none of which I’m going to go into. Doing so would require me to give too much away.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t care. These things will bother a lot of viewers, but I came out of “Avatar” in love with the story. Yes, it’s clichéd, but it’s also primal, as though it sprung forth from the same place that gave birth to legends. Cameron is not kind to the human race in “Avatar,” but I believe his message comes from a place of hope, not condemnation. With the last image of the movie, he seems to be suggesting we can still find a new way of life that’s not as destructive.
I’m running out of words, and I haven’t even begun to describe the visuals, which are as revolutionary today as those of “Star Wars” were in 1977. You do not watch “Avatar”; you behold it and exist within it. Going in, I was skeptical the movie could look as good as people were saying, but it does. In a word, it looks awesome.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald
.com.
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