Avatar ««½
PG-13, 162m. 2009
Cast & Credits: Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace August), Stephan Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch), Michelle Rodriguez (Trudy Chacon), Giovanni Ribisi (Parker Selfridge), Joel Moore (Norm Spellman), CCD Pounder (Moat), Wes Studi (Eytukan). Written and directed by James Cameron.
I dozed off at various times sitting through Avatar when I first saw it Dec. 19. This was the result of my coming down with either the flu or a sinus infection. Those moments where I did wake up, I found I didn’t miss much. Paraplegic marine hero Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) was still disguised as a tall blue male member of the alien Na’vi tribe on the planet Pandora attempting to fit in with the natives.
If I had reviewed Avatar then, I know it wouldn’t have been an honest review since I fell asleep through half of it. The only justification of my reviewing it at that time would be if I said the reason I dozed off was because I was bored watching director James Cameron’s long awaited sci-fi epic.
What I saw the first time didn’t impress me. Of course, reading all the conservative right wing negative commentary and film reviews on bighollywood.breitbart.com didn’t help. I can’t say the conservative naysayers are wrong. From a right wing standpoint Avatar boasts the usual liberal Hollywood “I hate America” message with its notions that American corporations and our military are evil and that we should not be marching off into other countries infiltrating their land and destroying the environment, in particular Iraq, and plundering its precious resource, which in our time is oil. At one point, I started thinking the military Colonel Quatrich (Stephen Lang) in Avatar had an uncanny resemblance to President George W. Bush.
By comparison, the precious resource those evil corporate minions, military leaders and mercenaries want in Avatar centuries from now is a special mineral that will help solve Earth’s energy crisis.
“That is why we’re here, because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo,” says the lead industrialist (Giovanni Ribisi).
If only grabbing that mineral were so easy. The resource lies at the very heart of where the Na’vi tribe live and if Sully can’t convince them to move peacefully, the military is going to step in and do it by force.
Well it’s been over two weeks and that’s more than enough time for me to put those negative conservative viewpoints aside and except Avatar for what it is, just a movie. Too bad Avatar is just that; only a movie and not a particularly great nor memorable one either; regardless of what’s being touted by the entertainment media.
Watching it, I wished I could do what scientist Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) tells Sully before he goes off into his Na’vi body.
“Just relax and let your mind go blank,” she says. I’ve relaxed and allowed my mind to go blank many a time this year watching such fun popcorn films as Up, Star Trek, 2012, and Paranormal Activity to name a few.
Like the scene where Sully and the scientists are looking out in amazement at the flying mountains and one of the pilots (Michelle Rodriguez) says, “You should see your faces,” I could easily picture director Cameron saying the same thing given how the film’s North American box office gross so far of over $350 million, $1 billion worldwide.
The same, however, cannot be said for the predictable storyline, which has been done countless times before. You got the villains boasting all their military might with futuristic fighter jets and laser cannons versus the Na’vi who only have bows and arrows as weapons and fly around on prehistoric winged serpents. Logically, if not technologically, one would think the military would be the ones who’d come out victorious. There is nothing surprising when the opposite happens.
The minute Sully is asked to infiltrate the Na’vi tribe, I knew where the climax was headed, just as I knew who would come out the winner. Avatar may be big on digital eye candy, especially if you are seeing it in 3d or on IMAX but unlike Cameron’s Titanic (1997) where I kept hoping the ocean liner wouldn’t sink and shed tears for the film’s characters, Avatar is not only emotionally empty, but it plays out more like a digital show and tell piece. Before long, the film’s visuals become the equivalent of what director Peter Jackson did adding all the prehistoric special effects in his remake of King Kong (2005) making the running time unnecessarily three hours. They become an attempt to wow us by saying, “Look how far we’ve come in terms of filmmaking technology since the 1970s!”
The reason why I own Cameron’s previous works like Titanic, The Terminator (1984) and Terminator II: Judgment Day (1991), Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989) director’s cut edition on DVD and Blu-ray is because they had a good story and characters you cared about. Yes the special effects were as good as the stories but they came second.
©1/7/10
PG-13, 162m. 2009
Cast & Credits: Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace August), Stephan Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch), Michelle Rodriguez (Trudy Chacon), Giovanni Ribisi (Parker Selfridge), Joel Moore (Norm Spellman), CCD Pounder (Moat), Wes Studi (Eytukan). Written and directed by James Cameron.
If I had reviewed Avatar then, I know it wouldn’t have been an honest review since I fell asleep through half of it. The only justification of my reviewing it at that time would be if I said the reason I dozed off was because I was bored watching director James Cameron’s long awaited sci-fi epic.
What I saw the first time didn’t impress me. Of course, reading all the conservative right wing negative commentary and film reviews on bighollywood.breitbart.com didn’t help. I can’t say the conservative naysayers are wrong. From a right wing standpoint Avatar boasts the usual liberal Hollywood “I hate America” message with its notions that American corporations and our military are evil and that we should not be marching off into other countries infiltrating their land and destroying the environment, in particular Iraq, and plundering its precious resource, which in our time is oil. At one point, I started thinking the military Colonel Quatrich (Stephen Lang) in Avatar had an uncanny resemblance to President George W. Bush.
By comparison, the precious resource those evil corporate minions, military leaders and mercenaries want in Avatar centuries from now is a special mineral that will help solve Earth’s energy crisis.
“That is why we’re here, because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo,” says the lead industrialist (Giovanni Ribisi).
If only grabbing that mineral were so easy. The resource lies at the very heart of where the Na’vi tribe live and if Sully can’t convince them to move peacefully, the military is going to step in and do it by force.
Well it’s been over two weeks and that’s more than enough time for me to put those negative conservative viewpoints aside and except Avatar for what it is, just a movie. Too bad Avatar is just that; only a movie and not a particularly great nor memorable one either; regardless of what’s being touted by the entertainment media.
Watching it, I wished I could do what scientist Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) tells Sully before he goes off into his Na’vi body.
“Just relax and let your mind go blank,” she says. I’ve relaxed and allowed my mind to go blank many a time this year watching such fun popcorn films as Up, Star Trek, 2012, and Paranormal Activity to name a few.
There is no doubt Avatar is an astounding computer generated fantasy that’s beautiful to look at on the big screen. The film is filled with images of multiple planets in the night skies, floating mountains with waterfalls, exotic vegetation and flying alien insects that light up when touched. I took special note of the theater’s stereo sound system as far as the soundtrack was concerned. Sitting in back, I was near one of the speakers and was able to hear the sounds of those flying insects and other alien voices in the background.I can see how to some want-to-be filmmakers and gifted digital artists with dreams of doing what Cameron has done here, Avatar’s visuals are the equivalent of a computerized wet dream; a never-ending orgasm that lasts over 160 minutes.
Like the scene where Sully and the scientists are looking out in amazement at the flying mountains and one of the pilots (Michelle Rodriguez) says, “You should see your faces,” I could easily picture director Cameron saying the same thing given how the film’s North American box office gross so far of over $350 million, $1 billion worldwide.
The same, however, cannot be said for the predictable storyline, which has been done countless times before. You got the villains boasting all their military might with futuristic fighter jets and laser cannons versus the Na’vi who only have bows and arrows as weapons and fly around on prehistoric winged serpents. Logically, if not technologically, one would think the military would be the ones who’d come out victorious. There is nothing surprising when the opposite happens.
The minute Sully is asked to infiltrate the Na’vi tribe, I knew where the climax was headed, just as I knew who would come out the winner. Avatar may be big on digital eye candy, especially if you are seeing it in 3d or on IMAX but unlike Cameron’s Titanic (1997) where I kept hoping the ocean liner wouldn’t sink and shed tears for the film’s characters, Avatar is not only emotionally empty, but it plays out more like a digital show and tell piece. Before long, the film’s visuals become the equivalent of what director Peter Jackson did adding all the prehistoric special effects in his remake of King Kong (2005) making the running time unnecessarily three hours. They become an attempt to wow us by saying, “Look how far we’ve come in terms of filmmaking technology since the 1970s!”
The reason why I own Cameron’s previous works like Titanic, The Terminator (1984) and Terminator II: Judgment Day (1991), Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989) director’s cut edition on DVD and Blu-ray is because they had a good story and characters you cared about. Yes the special effects were as good as the stories but they came second.
Avatar is yet another disappointing example of how far digital technology has destroyed today’s movies where eye candy now takes precedence and enticing us with memorable characters and an engrossing premise comes dead last, if it’s even given a thought. You need examples, look no further than the Transformers movies and for those who despise George Lucas for ruining the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), you got the less than stellar Star Wars prequels (1999-2005) to bitch about.Seeing Avatar is like going out on a blind date where you find out the woman, or if envisioning a tall blue female Na’vi alien helps you, is an attractive, hot looking blond with a large pair of breasts and nice long tanned legs without the hose on. She is beautiful on the outside but before the night is over, you find there isn’t much to her inside from an emotional standpoint. You eventually come to the conclusion that something is missing inside that $500 million dollar digitally enhanced computer generated brain of hers.
©1/7/10
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