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As a diversion before the final episode of “Attack of the MOMS” I thought I'd review Avatar because I don't want to be the only person on the block who hasn't reviewed Avatar. It's actually hard to review this film because I keep wanting to use words like “awesome” in sentences like “This film is so awesomely awesome, its awesomeness propelled me beyond awe.” This not only sounds illiterate, it is also, I hear, somewhat passé, since “awesome” is being replaced by “epic”, a word which could possibly describe Avatar but seems to go better with, say, Troy.
Of course a large amount of this awesomosity comes from its being in 3D, and 3D films have come a long way since the last one I saw. That was at the Bradford Museum of the Moving Image in the 1980s and was mainly about molecules. Deliberately avoiding seeing the trailer (no mean feat) so I wouldn't know what to expect other than a man with a blue face, I was assuming we'd get the usual 3D animation stuff, not a proper 3D film. I also expected lots of cheap tricks to show off the 3D, like small objects cutting right in front of your field of vision, and was not disappointed. Even though I knew it was a cheap trick to make me go “Wow”, I still went “Wow” every time.
Of course no film lives by special effects alone, or at least does not live very long. In ten years time, those cute 3D tricks will look as impressive as the computer graphics in Tron. Old-fashioned things like character and plot still have their uses. I can't say much about the plot without spoiling it, so I'll just say that at a superficial level it starts as a mixture of Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas and turns into a mixture of Braveheart and Return of the Jedi. A less superficial comparison would be with Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest except that the Deus Ex Machina is not alien visitors but — well, I promised no spoilers. All in all, the plot is not strikingly original, but it's not so corny as to make you chew your popcorn carton either, and it's a great vehicle for all those special effects. As for characters, by far the best is Lt. Ripley. OK, she's called Dr. Augustine, but deep down we know that Ripley has dyed her hair, disguised herself as a scientist, and come back to get her revenge on the Company. When she has her show-down with the weasely project manager, you can hear her thinking "I've met your type before, and fed them to aliens."
Sigourney Weaver has a good supporting cast, especially with Michelle Rodriguez playing Vazquez to her Ripley (and Han Solo to Worthington's Luke). Sam Worthington impressively underplayed the starring role to the extent that my wife thought he was an amateur who was hired because he didn't have any legs. I'm not being catty: she really did think that, and I really do think it's a tribute to his acting ability. Either that or he went overboard on method acting and really sawed his legs off for the film, but that's more the kind of thing Dustin Hoffman would do.
Finally, there's the message. That a film which is 95% special effects should bother with a message is in itself noteworthy. A plot is icing on the cake; a message is those little silver balls they put on top of the icing. Admittedly, the message is a simple and oft-repeated one: "Corporations bad, indigenous people good." It's Wounded Knee meets Earth Day. And of course there are some corporations that do good, and plenty of indigenous tribes that make a good case for cultural imperialism. But all things being equal, if a corporation wants to mine some bit of rainforest, I say it's time to get out the curare.
Of course a large amount of this awesomosity comes from its being in 3D, and 3D films have come a long way since the last one I saw. That was at the Bradford Museum of the Moving Image in the 1980s and was mainly about molecules. Deliberately avoiding seeing the trailer (no mean feat) so I wouldn't know what to expect other than a man with a blue face, I was assuming we'd get the usual 3D animation stuff, not a proper 3D film. I also expected lots of cheap tricks to show off the 3D, like small objects cutting right in front of your field of vision, and was not disappointed. Even though I knew it was a cheap trick to make me go “Wow”, I still went “Wow” every time.
Of course no film lives by special effects alone, or at least does not live very long. In ten years time, those cute 3D tricks will look as impressive as the computer graphics in Tron. Old-fashioned things like character and plot still have their uses. I can't say much about the plot without spoiling it, so I'll just say that at a superficial level it starts as a mixture of Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas and turns into a mixture of Braveheart and Return of the Jedi. A less superficial comparison would be with Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest except that the Deus Ex Machina is not alien visitors but — well, I promised no spoilers. All in all, the plot is not strikingly original, but it's not so corny as to make you chew your popcorn carton either, and it's a great vehicle for all those special effects. As for characters, by far the best is Lt. Ripley. OK, she's called Dr. Augustine, but deep down we know that Ripley has dyed her hair, disguised herself as a scientist, and come back to get her revenge on the Company. When she has her show-down with the weasely project manager, you can hear her thinking "I've met your type before, and fed them to aliens."
Sigourney Weaver has a good supporting cast, especially with Michelle Rodriguez playing Vazquez to her Ripley (and Han Solo to Worthington's Luke). Sam Worthington impressively underplayed the starring role to the extent that my wife thought he was an amateur who was hired because he didn't have any legs. I'm not being catty: she really did think that, and I really do think it's a tribute to his acting ability. Either that or he went overboard on method acting and really sawed his legs off for the film, but that's more the kind of thing Dustin Hoffman would do.
Finally, there's the message. That a film which is 95% special effects should bother with a message is in itself noteworthy. A plot is icing on the cake; a message is those little silver balls they put on top of the icing. Admittedly, the message is a simple and oft-repeated one: "Corporations bad, indigenous people good." It's Wounded Knee meets Earth Day. And of course there are some corporations that do good, and plenty of indigenous tribes that make a good case for cultural imperialism. But all things being equal, if a corporation wants to mine some bit of rainforest, I say it's time to get out the curare.
