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James Cameron may not be king of our world but he certainly
is of the CGI world he creates for "Avatar". After a long
layover making documentaries, Cameron returns to making
blockbuster event movies. Rivette may be right--Cameron
MAY want to be the De Mille of his era or he just might
want to tell entertaining stories while moving film technology
forward either way "Avatar" remains quite an achievement
flaws and all. ***
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington who is one of the best things
about the movie) agrees to take the place of his deceased
twin brother to an expeditition on a distant planet Pandora.
The planet offers one of the rarest and most valuable elements
around unfortunately the natives the 11 foot tall blue skinned
Na'vi live on the largest deposit ever discovered. Sully
will inhabit an alien/human hybrid and try and negoiate
with them to see if they will relocate so humanity can mine
this precious element. Sully a paraplegic fits in pefectly
with the team who has to interact with the tribe at least
on paper; the fact that he's a former soldier at first alienates
Dr. Grace Austine (Weaver) but he quickly integrates himself
into the crew. When he's separated from his team, he finds
himself pulled into the Na'vi's lives by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana)
the daughter of the leaders of the Na'vi tribe (Wes Studi
and CCH Pounder). Sully finds himself torn between two worlds--the
Na'vi and the military movement of humanity led by Col.
Quardich (Stephen Lang) and Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi).
***
With "Avatar" Cameron seeks to redefine the science
fiction epic (which is essentially the western epic set
in outer space) by tackling the "noble savage" vs. "greedy
white man" themes that defined most westerns and became
the central theme of "Dances with Wolves". I suppose you
could subtitle this "Dances with Monsters". While "Avatar"
is far from original in its themes, Cameron makes up for
that lack of originality with a visually stunning lush CGI
alien landscape with a bizarre and fascinating mix of creatures.
***
The performances are uniformly strong with Sam Worthington
continuing to prove that he has star power and raw sex appeal
as an actor. One of the strengths of the film is the casting
and the actors are all well cast bringing their personnas
to their roles helping to deepen the characters. ***
The main flaws with the film are two-fold; the film
runs twenty minutes too long and the dialogue although servicable
needed to be more than that which would have allowed us
a better understanding of the conflict between the characters.
The Na'vi culture tends to borrow extensively from the belief
systems seen in many human tribal cultures. Again, whatever
the film lacks in the cultural inventiveness of the Na'vi
culture and the storyline/themes here, he more than makes
up for with stimulating action sequences and a perfectly
realized alien world in the area of the visuals. ---
Image & Sound:
I'd stronlgy recommend seeing the film in an IMAX 3D
theater--Cameron's visual compositions are brilliantly designed
for 3D. His improved 3D technology makes the film positively
pop and the time spent on improving the CGI capture technology
to eliminate "Valley Drift" (i.e., a lack of emotion or
"deadness" behind the eyes and in expression) was well worth
it; "Avatar" features the most lifelike facial expressions
I've seen in a film. ***
The audio although not as groundbreaking is equally
stunning.
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