NecronLord wrote:Aratech wrote:Sorry to ask, but I just saw the movie yesterday. Is it okay to post a quasi-review/opinion of what I saw? I ask because it seems rather late in the game to give that kind of 'thoughts on subject X'.
Of course it's allright.
Okay. My thanks, Sir. I just hope I don't accidentally trigger a flame war. I've never really done an in depth movie review/rating before.
Avatar Review
James Cameron's Avatar, is to say the least, a Box Office blockbuster that puts Michal Bay to shame and is turning other directors greener than the dollar bills that Cameron is probably swimming through right now in his homage to Scrooge McDuck. That he has performed what is essentially the wet dream of every director in Hollywood (again) is praiseworthy, but this is not to say that Avatar is without its flaws.
Below, I shall break the film into four major categories: Story. Characters. Visual/Audio medium. Acting. Beyond that, bonus points may be awarded for miscellaneous things, or point deducted for things that I do not like. This is scored between 1 and 10 for each categories, with the miscellaneous contributing points towards the final averaged score. For this purpose, a 10 would be, say, the likes of Terminator 2, the Empire Strikes Back, Return of the King, The Dark Knight, etc. 5 is decidedly average, something that usually comes out of Hollywood to try and make more money than it cost to produce with the hope of nabbing an Oscar in a specific category, such as Superman Returns or the older Hulk movie. 1 would be anything directed by Uwe Boll or similar garbage, such as Batman and Robin or Star Trek V.
Now then, onto the review.
Characters:
Some of Avatars characters are good, others are not so good. To start with, Jake Sully, is a man that I had trouble sympathizing with, beyond the 'oh, I've lost my legs and can't afford to have the spinal surgery done, boohoo, boohoo' and being so obviously thrust in over his head that its not even funny. His job is to find a diplomatic solution to the mutual problems besetting both sides of the conflict (namely that the Na'Vi obviously don't want to leave their homes, and the RDA wants what's underneath their home, and aren't taking no for an answer.) His job is to gain their trust, this justifies him keeping the deadline a secret until after they've started to accept him. However, once that time passes, he has an obligation to these people who have overcome their prejudice, and who have accepted them into their lives, despite knowing full freaking well what he is, to warn them of the danger. Does he 'man up' and confess to them what his purpose is? No. He doesn't tell them he's been gathering information on them. But that's not the issue. He doesn't even have the decency to inform them that in X number of days, the Sky People are going to show up, and they're going to smash them so badly that it'll make getting eaten by those wolf creatures look downright pleasant by comparison.
Even on the final night of the deadline, when the RDA tells him, "The dozers arrive tomorrow. You've got till then to spill your guts, give them the 411, and get them out of there, or really bad stuff is going to happen." What does he do? Does he bolt to tell them of the danger, does he tell the Chief, who has taken him in against his better judgment, what is going to happen? No. He's busy screwing his daughter (something that he should know better than, as she's betrothed to another man (so we can add 'adulterer' to his list of unsympathetic qualities) and he's fully aware of just what kind of an epic level shitstorm he's going to stir up by doing so.
Once Hometree is so much firewood, he then decides that gathering them up to assault the RDA homebase is the right fine thing to do despite knowing how badly they'll get mauled in a best case circumstance. This is even though he knows the RDA will not bother the Na'Vi again, as they have what they want. And he does this by invoking Mighty Whitey so badly it hurts, but more on that later.
Our antagonist suffers from the same unlikeability, but for different reasons (as again, you're not generally supposed to 'like' the antagonist). Quaritch is a badass, to be sure. One of the best in recent cinema. Unfortunately, that's
all he is. There is no depth to his character. He's a flat strawman of every remotely enthusiastic military man in the history of mankind. He has no backstory, no depth beyond channeling the spirit of a Khornite Beserker so hard that I was half expecting him to yell 'Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!' when he was fighting Jake at the end. He is utterly flat, and Cameron apparently hoped that by invoking the spirit of every Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Chan, and Sean Connery character in existence, people would perhaps look past this. I am not amused.
Nor can Cameron attempt to pass it off by comparing Quaritch to other somewhat one dimensional antagonists in the past like the Xenomorphs or the Terminators. The Colonel is not some unthinking, bestial alien, nor is he an assassination robot with a single overriding directive and a one track mind. He is a human being. A man who was presumably skilled enough to be placed in charge of security for what is arguably the most important colony in human existence. He does not respond like that. He acts like a beast with barely contained aggression and a whole host of mental problems that make you wonder how he even passed a basic psych examination. This is not a man who should be placed at the head of security of such an important and fragile operation, and I cannot find it in myself to believe that the RDA would be bonkers enough to place him in charge. The other two 'main' antagonistic marines suffer the same fate. They are utterly irredeemable, no depth of character. They are bad, bad men (with the token black guy to possibly avoid invoking Unfortunate Implications) and we are to feel no sympathy for them whatsoever. Riiiiiight. Because the RDA is going to, at the cost of several hundred million dollars a piece, ship out a defense force consisting solely of triggerhappy, borderline nutcases to protect an extraordinarily valuable colony years away from any help in a situation that gives new definition to the meaning of the word 'delicate.'
Our Corporate Slimeball is the same. Utterly unlikeable, to the point where we are apparently supposed to want to shoot him in the face despite only knowing him for five minutes. Cameron certainly succeeded if that was his intent. Unfortunately, Slimeball (I cannot be arsed to remember his name, and I don't think he's worthy of one, as once again, he's not a character so much as a strawman for everything bad about corporate capitalism). The man is utterly fucking incompetent. He has no idea about the world he's supposed to be 'governing', no desire to learn about what he's supposed to be overseeing, and acts like he's stoned out of his head half of the time without a care in the world.
And I'm supposed to believe that the RDA, a corporation massive enough to singlehandedly fund something like this, is going to put this lughead in charge? A man so massively incompetent at even number crunching that he cannot realize what I, someone with no business training or capitalist market specialization whatsoever, noticed within thirty seconds of seeing it: that the Na'Vi have theoretical, maybe actual, immortality at their disposal, and the fact that if you can figure out how to corner that market, that you will make profits that will make the Unobtanium mining look like bloody
pocket change! This is derived from the simple notion that people will pay through the nose to stay alive for five more minutes. Let alone five more millennia.
Again, riiiiiight.
Fortunately for Avatar, Supporting Human Cast to the rescue! Sigourney's character, Grace, represents a properly fleshed out, fully rounded human being. She is short tempered with people she doesn't like, and has a very hard 'shell' around her character. Fortunately, though, she softens once you get to know her. A tad cliché perhaps, but Sigourney Weaver is a talented enough actress to pull it off and make it look believable. Most of the other nonmilitary supporting cast and the defecting pilot (whom I shall fondly call Vasquez as she does remind me much of said character from Aliens) have flaws and positive character traits well mixed together. You don't save this, guys, but you do help it a lot.
The Na'Vi are somewhat one dimensional as well, with the exception of Neytiri (though she's a tad skitso at first (reactions to Jake) she fleshes herself out sufficiently before the end). She goes through a wide range of situations, and has a set of humanlike emotions to compliment them. The watcher can feel her anger, helpless rage, her love, her hopes, and her fears. Her voice actress is also talented enough to match this dynamic character and keep up with the rigorous demands of her role. Aside from her, though, everyone just feels… flat. Testru is there to be 'macho tough guy/rival for female's affections' who we all know the moment we meet him will come to eventually accept Jake, despite Jake effectively supplanting him from the job he's been groomed for since his birth. The Chief and Shaman likewise are there to channel 'wise old Indian' to the point where it's about as subtle as a Barbarian Horde.
Though I must note that I do not sense this supposed 'anti-technology' vibe from the Na'Vi that some at Spacebattles have chanted and shouted about. I see them turning down medicine of unknown quality in exchange for their homes, which is logical and very humanlike. As has been said in other areas: Eminent Domain exists and is a conferred power of the Federal Government for a damn good reason.
Overall rating: 5.5 out of 10. The Human protagonist, and his two antagonists are either unlikable or flatter than the sheet of notebook paper that I doodled on while waiting for the 24.5 minutes worth of previews to just, freaking, end. For the Na'Vi, it is reversed, with only the protagonist having much real depth. The supporting cast, though, combined with Neytiri's well rounded character, manage to keep this above the average mark.
Story:
….
….
….
Where to begin? This is certainly the weakest part of the movie. I can see why some have termed it Dances With Wolves in SPAAAAAAAACCCCCEEEEE, or Avatar: White Guilt. The Na'Vi channel the old and tired Noble Savage/American Indian so hard that it literally hurts for me to watch it. It's tragic as well, as there was much potential here to do something original, in depth, dare I say, beautiful. And it has been squandered in the name of a morality play about something that we've long since seen is not good. Yes, forcing people off of their land in the name of corporate greed is bad. Yes, killing them for it is bad. I do not deny that the line is clearly drawn.
And there is where the problem lies. The movie is black and white in its morality. 99.9% of the Humans are irredeemably evil, shortsighted, psychotic, or thinking with their little heads. The Na'Vi are 100% saintly. They have no crime. There are no cowards. There is no greed. No internal racism or bigotry. No wars (that we see), they exist in perfect harmony among themselves, the other tribes, and their world to the point where they hate the shedding of blood of predatory animals about to make a snack out of one of their 'own.' There is no grey, no color. The lines are not blurred. And the story suffers for it. Because real life is not so simple.
And worse, in his attempt to portray them as such noble savages (which is also a curiosity for me: why do so many Na'Vi seem to have (I think, keyword think) African accents when speaking English, when they learned English from an American?), Cameron inadvertently invokes Mighty Whitey to the point where I was forced to facepalm a few times. Such as the 'Last Shadow' creature that Jake had to tame to prove that he was the baddest, ballsiest MF'er around. You expect me to believe that a Jarhead with no experience or information on Pandora, with less than 1 hours worth of actual experience observing this aerial apex predator (the majority of which was spent running the hell away from it), was able to figure out something that the Na'Vi hadn't in thousands upon thousands of years? Worse, something so blindly obvious as the fact that as an Apex predator that attacks by diving down, that nothing on this entire world fucks with, it's not going to be watching six o'clock high, a natural ambush position, because nothing in the entire world is crazy enough to do that? (Also, Cameron: you missed an excellent opportunity by just having the screen black out there and not actually showing us how Jake managed this apparent 'miracle').
In short, the story is cliché, old, and ridiculously one sided. This can be fine in some circumstances, such as Schindler's List. But environmentalism and anti-colonialism much be approached more delicately, more subtly, or you risk turning off your audience and doing more harm to your cause than good, ala Captain Planet.
I am not saying that RDA is in the right. Far from it, they were clearly the bad guys here. And any who supported or sided with them, driven home so frequently and with such force as to make A Christmas Carol look downright subtle. But that's it. I've seen more delicacy and depth from Michal 'I like Shit Blowing Up' Bay.
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 10.
The hopelessly preachy and unoriginality make this, without a doubt, the worst story that Cameron has ever told and put to picture. I've seen Schumacher films with more interesting tales to tell than this.
Goddamnit Cameron. You are better than this.
Audio/Visual:
The strong point for this movie, without a doubt. Credit is to be given where credit is due. And here, it most certainly is. Avatar has done what no other predominantly CGI film has done. It has managed to skirt the uncanny valley for the most part. The Na'Vi and most of Pandora's wildlife look like real creatures. Much like the Prawn from District 9, in the back of your head, you know these things aren't real, but on screen, they do come to life. Cameron's newly invented CGI camera technology is also used to its best here. In short, these are special effects done right (Mr. Bay, if you're watching this movie. Do take notes. This is how it should be done). As it was in Aliens, and in Terminator 2, Cameron has once again raised the bar to a new height, and as far as the visual is concerned, this is the movie that all others, especially sci-fi epics, will be compared to. And it will be a difficult hurdle to clear.
The audio work is similarly spectacular. I've never heard of this James Horner individual before, but the audio track, as well as the ambient life noise from Pandora's wildlife, is some of the best I've ever heard. I can tell you without a doubt, that I shall be purchasing this soundtrack at the first available opportunity.
There are minor glitches here and there (for example, when Quaritch first turns in the AMP suit when he's addressing Jake about getting his legs back, there's a sudden drop in quality of the CGI, but I didn't notice it happening too often), and it is not enough for the score to be affected.
Overall Rating: 10 out of 10.
Masterfully done, Mr. Cameron, masterfully done. You have created something that is a feast for the eyes, as well as for the ears.
Acting:
The second strongest point of the film. Now, while the characters and story are not really very good at all, there is a genuine sense that the actors are giving it their best shot. They don't act like people who are just there for the paycheck, but are really enthusiastic about playing their roles (I suspect for all the character's problems, Quaritch and Slimeball's actors must have been having a field day of the 'I cannot believe I'm getting paid to do this' type). The enthusiasm and skill are wonderful to watch, and Cameron has always been good at pulling skilled performances out of his characters that truly bring them to life. He has once more succeeded here, as have, I feel, all of the characters and voice actors. I enjoyed watching them, and I look forward to seeing more performances by these individuals in the future, especially if (as seems likely) a sequel or even a trilogy is in order, and I wish them well in their careers.
Overall Rating: 9 out of 10.
Again, credit is to be given where credit is due. Hats off to these fellows for an all star performance (again, Mr. Bay, if you're watching this movie, take notes. That goes double for you, Mr. Boll).
Miscellaneous Final Modifiers:
Some good and bad things to add in here.
The Good:
Message. The story is clichéd as all hell, and the path to telling it is botched. But I shall still give it credit for attempting to teach a good moral to the people watching it. With luck, some of them will be able to look past its preachy and over the top nature and see that message. +.5
Attention to detail: Cameron has always been a stickler for this, and I appreciate the effort to remain internally consistent and the attention paid to the little things, that are all too often today glossed over in favor of more explosions and gratuitous T&A for the sake of explosions and gratuitous T&A. +1
The Bad:
Military Incompetence- While not as bad as some films of last couple of decades (I'm looking in the direction of 90% of Star Trek films, the American Godzilla film, and Dragon Wars), there is still gobs of it at the final battle. The biggest thing, even more than sending in a shuttle capable of VTOL for a long, slow glide under the mountains where it's clear from Sat imagery that there's a vertical air corridor straight down that don't involve flying through thousands of meters of Obvious Ambush Territory, was the ability of the Na'Vi to pull off that successful ambush. This can be partially excused due to the problems of the navigation aides, but there's an issue here of common sense and obeying command. Despite being on escort duty against air attack, and everyone being specifically told to keep their heads on a swivel/looking up and that there are thousands of hostiles in the area (of which they've known for years ride around on these banshees), I am supposed to believe that not one person was looking up to spot the ungodly massive cloud of these things that just descended upon them? That no one even bothered to scream 'Heads up!" or the like?
Riiiiiighht.
-.5, for not being as bad as a lot of movies, but still having the military act stupidly in a situation where they really shouldn't. I'm not asking for the second coming of Sun Tzu, just common sense.
Deus Ex Machina- As a English major, I am inclined to despise these things on general principle, except when they're obviously being played for laughs (examples include the otherwise god-awful Spy Kids 3-D (seriously, that 2 hours of my life I still want back (long story involving much younger siblings)) or movies/Arthurian lampooning plays involving Tim Curry) or done extraordinarily well. This was not. The planet, after having the stuffing mined out of it (literally) for at least years, if not decades, and only now, even after they've obliterated a Soul Tree, listens to the 'prayer' of the protagonist (which is conflicting in nature, "We killed our mother? There is no Green? Then what was this Venezuelan bush that Quaritch was going on about and that Jake worked in?) decides 'screw Humanity, get them off of me!' -.5
Final Score: 7.25 out of 10.
Without a doubt, as far as story telling is concerned, this is not Cameron's high point (and I say this as someone heavily in the environmental and 'oppressing people in the name of corporate greed is bad' camps). Visually and Auditorially, this is a masterpiece, but those seeking Oscar level writing should not attend this movie. For those who may be able to turn their brains off and enjoy the visual eyecandy of the movie and special effects, you may feel satisfied. Those seeking good acting should also look here, as there are gems to be found amongst the refuse of the story line and some poorly thought out characters.
Much as it pains me to say it about a film by James Cameron I relegate this to the 'Popcorn Flick' pile. It is, however, still a very, very good popcorn flick. Better than many that have come out of Hollywood of late. I must again stress that this scale places a 5 at an average, much like how Chuck Sonnenburg, AKA SFDebris does his Star Trek reviews. This movie is above average, but it falls short of the greatness that Cameron was hoping for. Still, its strong box office showing gives much hope that there will be future exploration of this universe, and perhaps the kinks can be ironed out, the subjects that were glossed over explored more in depth, correcting the flat characters and perhaps making the Na'Vi less a race of walking Mary-Sues.
"Impossible! Lasers can't even harm out deflector dish! Clearly these foes are masters of illusion!' 'But sir, my console says we-' 'MASTERS OF ILLUSION! - General Schatten
