PHOTO BY PHOTO COURTESY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION
AVATAR
Where is it playing?: Downtown Centre (in 3-D), Park
What's it rated?: PG-13
What's it worth?: $12.50
(Steve)
What's it worth?: $10.00
(Glen)
Writer-director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic) returns with this story about an otherworldly battle between humans and an alien world’s indigenous population. But as Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who’s infiltrated the enemy ranks via an avatar, begins to know his adversaries, he soon switches sides and fights to protect their lives and planet. (155 min.)
Glen The naysayers are already singing their sad lament: It’s Dances With Wolves in space; it’s a rehash of The Last Samurai; yada yada yada! Sure, James Cameron has written a derivative plot, telling a story as old as humankind, and that’s exactly why it’s so affecting. So, yes, this story isn’t new or especially inventive, but the world Cameron creates with CGI 3-D technology is new … new and amazing. The 2-D trailers I saw before the film can’t even begin to hint at how amazing this film looks in 3-D. I felt completely immersed in a foreign world, and I believed it the whole time. For pure escapist entertainment, moviegoers will be hard-pressed to find a film equal to the grandeur and wonder of Avatar.
Steve This film has been hyped now for several years and the public can thank Cameron for the abundance of 3-D cinemas today because of this movie. Amazingly, Avatar surpasses the hype. There will be talk forever about the script and the cardboard-cutout characters, but this film breaks so much ground in movie-making techniques, it will be remembered as a milestone. Do your own research into what Cameron has achieved technically: There are articles online and in many different magazines well worth reading, so I won’t belabor the point here, but I’ll say that watching this movie was like seeing action filmed by nature cinematographers on an alien planet. The life of Pandora (the moon where the action takes place) was believable, realistic, riveting! As his techniques trickle down to other moviemakers, we’ll be treated to some amazing spectacles.
Glen What’s great about this new 3-D technology is it doesn’t necessarily need to be used for hokey scare tactics like things flying out of the screen at you. For most of the film, Cameron uses the technique with an admirable restraint, subtly creating a fully realized world. A while ago I read an interview with him in which he said something I frankly couldn’t believe: that viewers wouldn’t be able to tell where the computer generated stuff left off and reality began. I thought, Ha! Fat chance! But it’s true. Sam Worthington’s character Jake Sully has a spinal injury, and late in the film when his legs are shown, they look atrophied. Obviously it had to be CGI, but I sure couldn’t tell, and that little tidbit also shows the level of detail Cameron renders. As for the derivative, it really didn’t bother me. I cared about these characters and felt they were very well developed. Sure, some were painted more broadly than others, for instance corporate stooge Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) essentially had no redeeming qualities, and Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) was very one-dimensional, but overall I got to know and understand Sully, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), helicopter pilot Trudy Chacon (Michelle Rodriguez), and even the CGI characters Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), Tsu’Tey (Laz Alonso), and Eytukan (Wes Studi). I’d go see it again; that’s how good Avatar is.
Steve The only thing that critics can say about the film is that the plot was derivative and the acting was not Shakespearean, but then again this is a movie that is reaching out to a broad swath of the movie-going public and not targeting the snooty, holier-than-thou, artsy fartsy film crowd. If we take a comparison to the last three installments of Lucas’ Star Wars epic, the acting in Avatar is pretty damn amazing. I love the fact that Cameron got Weaver on board for this one, as she’ll always be the queen of alien-themed movies to me. What was most amazing about this film? The fact that no detail was left uncovered. There is so much more depth to be explored in future installments, which will undoubtedly come so we can learn even more about this crazy moon and how all of its inhabitants are linked together. The story was painted with a broad enough brush; I’m sure many more stories can be wrung out. Realize of course that the bulk of the time it took to create this movie was because the technology didn’t exist, but now that it does all movie fans will benefit tremendously!
Glen Starkey is a New Times staff writer and Steve Miller is New Times’ staff photographer. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com and semiller@newtimesslo.com.
