Avatar, directed by James Cameron, tells of a sci-fi/fantasy future, when humans have traveled to other worlds, and scientists have developed "avatars," alternate bodies which can be controlled mentally by humans from the safety of a pod in a lab. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a Marine corporal who is paralyzed from the waist down, is sent into space to take over the avatar of his twin brother, who was killed in combat. In space, Jake becomes caught between a menacing colonel (Stephen Lang) and a straightforward scientist (Sigourney Weaver), who both want his avatar to befriend the native people, but for very different purposes. At stake is the aptly-named metal unobtainium, a massively expensive metal, largely deposited beneath the village of the native people, the Na'Vi. As Jake befriends the Na'Vi and learns their ways, the lines between his real life and the life of his avatar begin to blur, along with his loyalties to his military employers.
First and foremost, Avatar is visually stunning. To make the film, Cameron partnered with the WETA Workshop to deftly create two worlds, that of the humans aboard their various space craft and military bases, and that of their destination planet. The military spacecraft are chock full of futuristic gadgets that do not seem beyond the logical reach of Apple's innovation: plexiglass computer monitors and clipboards, glowing real-time brain scans, even the in vitro avatars, which float peacefully in their amniotic containers and flinch involuntarily like embryos.
The second world, the planet of the Na'Vi, is called Pandora, a name with connotations of forbidden discovery and danger. When coupled with the planet's breathtaking graphics and fantastical characters, however, the planet's name doesn't seem trite or ironic at all. It is a tropical spectacle, overflowing with day-glo foliage, weird six-limbed hybrid beasts, and sentient dandelion puffs, like the Amazon Basin as imagined by Terry Gilliam on LSD. Real-D technology pulls the viewer into the film to partake in Pandora's lush landscapes and epic battles of the Titans, whether between a neon triceratops and a glistening giant panther, or between military drone battalions and an enormous tree. Camera work, too, grabs the audience and pulls them in, plummeting on the backs of giant birds or ascending to steep mountains in the sky.
The Na'Vi themselves are scrupulously digitized, with individualized faces and facial expressions. Their long blue bodies are muscular and criss-crossed with glowing dots, their dress and comportment tribal. The integration of the Na'Vi into the real world, and of humans into Pandora's CGI world, is seamless. In some instances, the avatars enhance, instead of inhibit, the performances of the actors playing them; Sigourney Weaver is believable as an avatar but stiff as a human, as if Weaver has spent a bit too much time playing tough women in space.
Where Avatar's art direction triumphs, the storyboard is left wanting. The movie's plot is not so jumbled that it is incomprehensible, but many story lines are introduced and then neither explained nor followed to their completion. What is the military's motivation for destroying the natives? What of the precious unobtainium? How much do the Na'Vi know of the humans and their relationship with their avatars? Most importantly, if humans are able to descend to Pandora, why create avatars at all?
These questions pop up after you've left the theater, but certainly not during the movie experience. James Cameron's work is moving to the max, allowing the audience little time to worry about silly things like plot continuity. Cameron does raise pointed emotional and intellectual themes throughout the course of the three-hour film, and leaves them for the audience to ponder: the new freedom of a man who has regained his legs artificially, the wonder and sense of ownership that accompanies the discovery of a new world, even the dangers of becoming too wrapped up in a game or an alternate reality. The fifteen-year-old boys sure to flock to see Avatar might want to think about the last proposition.
Avatar opens nationwide Friday, December 18.
First and foremost, Avatar is visually stunning. To make the film, Cameron partnered with the WETA Workshop to deftly create two worlds, that of the humans aboard their various space craft and military bases, and that of their destination planet. The military spacecraft are chock full of futuristic gadgets that do not seem beyond the logical reach of Apple's innovation: plexiglass computer monitors and clipboards, glowing real-time brain scans, even the in vitro avatars, which float peacefully in their amniotic containers and flinch involuntarily like embryos.
The second world, the planet of the Na'Vi, is called Pandora, a name with connotations of forbidden discovery and danger. When coupled with the planet's breathtaking graphics and fantastical characters, however, the planet's name doesn't seem trite or ironic at all. It is a tropical spectacle, overflowing with day-glo foliage, weird six-limbed hybrid beasts, and sentient dandelion puffs, like the Amazon Basin as imagined by Terry Gilliam on LSD. Real-D technology pulls the viewer into the film to partake in Pandora's lush landscapes and epic battles of the Titans, whether between a neon triceratops and a glistening giant panther, or between military drone battalions and an enormous tree. Camera work, too, grabs the audience and pulls them in, plummeting on the backs of giant birds or ascending to steep mountains in the sky.
The Na'Vi themselves are scrupulously digitized, with individualized faces and facial expressions. Their long blue bodies are muscular and criss-crossed with glowing dots, their dress and comportment tribal. The integration of the Na'Vi into the real world, and of humans into Pandora's CGI world, is seamless. In some instances, the avatars enhance, instead of inhibit, the performances of the actors playing them; Sigourney Weaver is believable as an avatar but stiff as a human, as if Weaver has spent a bit too much time playing tough women in space.
Where Avatar's art direction triumphs, the storyboard is left wanting. The movie's plot is not so jumbled that it is incomprehensible, but many story lines are introduced and then neither explained nor followed to their completion. What is the military's motivation for destroying the natives? What of the precious unobtainium? How much do the Na'Vi know of the humans and their relationship with their avatars? Most importantly, if humans are able to descend to Pandora, why create avatars at all?
These questions pop up after you've left the theater, but certainly not during the movie experience. James Cameron's work is moving to the max, allowing the audience little time to worry about silly things like plot continuity. Cameron does raise pointed emotional and intellectual themes throughout the course of the three-hour film, and leaves them for the audience to ponder: the new freedom of a man who has regained his legs artificially, the wonder and sense of ownership that accompanies the discovery of a new world, even the dangers of becoming too wrapped up in a game or an alternate reality. The fifteen-year-old boys sure to flock to see Avatar might want to think about the last proposition.
Avatar opens nationwide Friday, December 18.
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