IT'S ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS...BUT THEN THEY START TALKING: a review of "Avatar"

Originally written on December 23, 2009

“AVATAR”
Written and Directed by James Cameron
**1/2 stars (two and a half stars)

I really wanted to love this movie. Man, did I want to love this movie. I pulled for it, rooted for it, hoped and continue to hope. Unfortunately, it was to no avail. Ever since the fall of 1984, when I was 15 and skeptically entered a screening of “The Terminator,” I exited a supreme fan of Writer/Director James Cameron. From the terrifying war saga of “Aliens” (1986) to the underwater mysticism of “The Abyss” (1989), to “Terminator 2” (1991), the rare sequel that massively improves upon the original, to the exciting spy comedy of “True Lies” (1994) and of course, the king of the Hollywood epics, “Titanic” (1997), James Cameron has hurtled himself to the top echelon of big budget filmmakers. He has deftly and superbly combined personal artistic visions with groundbreaking technological leaps and I have been left breathless each and every time.

Yet, by the end of the 2 hour and 45 minute running time of “Avatar,” Cameron’s latest grand vision and his first narrative feature film in 12 years, I shrugged my shoulders in a disinterested fashion and left the theater with an emotion that could be described as indifferent at best and apathetic at worst. “Avatar” is by no means a bad film. It is not a failure in the least and I would not discourage anyone from seeing it, even if I could. However, for all of the sound, vision, spectacle and fury, I was completely detached emotionally from the experience. No matter how hard it and I tried, I could not get myself lost in this film, I just didn’t care much for anything that happened to any character in it and it resulted in a forward thinking behemoth of a movie without the most basic and necessary element: a heart.

Set 154 years in the future and after a continuing energy crisis has ravaged and depleted Earth’s resources, humans have selfishly set their sights upon the moon of Pandora, an ecological wonderland containing a precious mineral that could save the planet. Of course, Pandora is not a threat to Earth in any way; yet, the military and mass corporations of our planet are more than willing to forcefully extract said mineral by any means necessary (think Vietnam or Iraq). That includes an imminent war with the indigenous, primitive beings of Pandora known as the Na’vi; striking 10 feet tall blue skinned creatures with somewhat feline facial features and huge glowing soulful eyes. Pandora’s atmosphere is toxic to humans, so in order to covertly navigate the world, Earthlings are able to visit and explore “Matrix-style” via an “avatar,” a being of merged human and Na’vi DNA.

Enter Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine lured to Pandora by scientists (represented by Sigourney Weaver’s gruff Dr. Grace Augustine), the nameless mass corporation (represented by Giovanni Ribisi’s greedy and soulless Parker Selfridge), and the military (represented by Stephen Lang’s sadistic Col. Miles Quaritch) to take part in the Avatar program, of which his now deceased twin brother scientist was at the forefront. Being used as a pawn for all sides, Sully is instructed to merge with his avatar, infiltrate and study the Na’vi in order to conquer them from within. Initially, Sully agrees, as through his avatar, he is now able to experience life in ways he is unable to as a human. Yet, his inner conflict rises as he grows to respect and cherish the world of Pandora, the ways of life of the Na’vi as well as his growing love affair with warrior Neytiri (beautifully played through motion capture techniques by Zoe Saldana). As the film continues onwards towards the inevitable genocide of the Na’vi and the climactic and extended war sequence, Sully is trapped in the middle between his duty to his home planet and the survival of his new allegiances, their home and the love of his life.

On many levels, what Cameron presents to us is a complete and undisputable triumph as his visual aesthetics, mastery of special effects and revolutionary motion capture techniques make “Avatar” an event movie that must be seen on the large screen. For a film that reportedly cost $300 MILLION dollars to produce, you can see every solitary penny on the screen. Nothing has been wasted and the time, effort, sweat and endurance is on equal display as the film’s cost. The sights, creatures and landscapes of Pandora are a sight to truly behold, as they are as lush and minutely detailed as anything seen in George Lucas’ recent “Star Wars” prequel trilogy. Not even a blade of grass looks out of place.

I will admit that at first, the sight of the Na’vi was a tad jarring as they completely stood outwards from the real actors and sets—the effect was not initially a seamless one. As the film continues and we are placed on Pandora for elongated periods, the deep textures of the Na’vi strongly reveal themselves and the avatar characters, which bear the likenesses of Worthington and Weaver, are extremely impressive in their realism. James Cameron’s overall vision and attention to visual detail cannot be questioned or debated. He is assuredly one of the miniscule directors working today who are able to wrap their heads effectively around material this vast and complex.

So, what went wrong? Many years ago, George Lucas explained in an interview that his reliance on his revolutionary special effects was simply a means to an end for they only exist as a storytelling tool. As he succinctly put it, “A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.” I am not suggesting that “Avatar” lacked story, plot, characters, or their motivations. Quite the contrary, there’s more than enough story to go around in this film and themes of ecological preservation, deep criticisms of faceless, monolithic corporations, cautionary views of technology and man’s arrogance due to an over-reliance on technology echoes sentiments expressed in nearly all of Cameron’s previous work. All of the ingredients are here. The problem is that for all of the arduous energy placed into the visual presentation, that same level of detail was not present in the actual WRITING of the story.

James Cameron, who has written nearly all of his films, has typically been given a sense of short shrift for his screenwriting. He has been criticized for being too simplistic and not nearly eloquent enough. I whole–heartedly disagree with those sentiments as I have felt that his writing has perfectly fit the type and style of films that he makes. His writing may not be subtle but it effectively represents a personal vision. Whenever I have seen a James Cameron film, I have never felt that I am viewing a soulless enterprise like say…the “Pirates Of The Caribbean” series, for instance. His films are as personal as any low-budget independent feature to me and I have often felt that the criticisms have been unfair.

Cameron took much heat for his screenwriting of “Titanic” and since that film, being the biggest box office hit of all time; it is definitely the 800-pound gorilla in the room, an endlessly easy target. For me, as I ruminate over my impressions of that film, I felt Cameron’s writing was at his finest and at times, even poetic. I believed what his characters said and the words he chose to place in his actor’s mouths never took me out of the story he was attempting to tell. I felt that he struggled over every word and every act of staging sequences of cataclysm where the film didn’t exist as just another disaster movie. I thought his usage of a love-story was a great move as it placed humanity into what had essentially become a modern myth, thus placing the tragedy at the forefront and making it real. The present-day sequence where we are shown via computer of how exactly the iceberg impacted the ship and how that moment affected the ultimate destruction of the ship was a masterstroke of storytelling. Once we were placed into the past and the iceberg struck, we had an intimate knowledge of the situation that the characters did not, which elevated the sensation that death was coming and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Finally, I felt that having the technique of making steerage passenger Jack and high-class Rose race around the boat from top to bottom, dramatically and persuasively presented the theme that when death comes calling, all societal divisions and differences mean nothing. All of those examples came straight from Cameron’s writing and unfortunately, I felt none of that painstaking commitment to the writing in “Avatar.”

In comparison to all of Cameron’s previous films, I was stunned at how poorly written it was. “Avatar” is run rampant with clichés, flat characterizations, and a shameless calculated effort to revive the love-story magic of “Titanic.” When one character explains the significance of the phrase, “I see you,” you can practically hear Cameron thinking, “This will be my ‘You complete me’!” It rang wholly false (and you may want to skip out of the theater quickly before the end-credits song begins to warble much like Celine Dion’s “Titanic” hit). Remember, no one expected “Titanic” to become the hit that it was whereas this time, it felt as if Cameron was attempting to manufacture that elusive lightning in a bottle just as he had manufactured the world of Pandora.

For all intents and purposes, “Avatar’ is a futuristic version of “Dances With Wolves” yet unfortunately, Cameron didn’t play around with that formula in the least, which made the film exhaustively predictable. Everything happens the way you would expect it to happen without any deviation and that even includes the protracted war sequence, which follows all of the pre-requisite stages of victory, failure, and tragedy in the exact order that you would expect to see them. Because of that, I felt something I have never felt in a James Cameron film: boredom.

Throughout the film, I wondered what if Cameron had taken a slightly different approach to his own material. Perhaps instead of having Sam Worthington as a surrogate for the audience to step into the world of Pandora, what if we saw the story entirely from the point of view of the Na’vi? What if he immersed us in their world, experiences and language from the outset? I think that might have played with the story’s formula effectively and raised the emotional stakes without having to sacrifice any of the themes he wanted to present. I often thought of this past summer’s horrifically sensational “District 9,” directed by Neill Blonkamp. This was another science fiction film, which indeed shared similar themes with “Avatar,” including man’s inhumanity as well as the depiction of a human caught in between duties to his race and the plight of aliens. “District 9” played with the formula enough to make that film a unique and unforgettable experience while also employing some of the most photo-realistic CGI effects I have ever seen…and at a fraction of the budget allotted to “Avatar” to boot! Cameron is a much better storyteller than he is on display with “Avatar” and it was disappointing.

Most shockingly, “Avatar” hosts painful—and I mean, PAINFULLY bad dialogue. To clarify, I don’t mean the corny, flat, 1930’s “Flash Gordon” inspired dialogue of the “Star Wars” saga. I mean that Cameron’s dialogue for “Avatar” is probably some of the worst I have seen in any film this year and it completely undercut the heights he had scaled visually. The dialogue let his actors down terribly and reduced nearly all of them to cardboard. Sigourney Weaver is a formidable presence and her role as Ellen Ripley in “Aliens” has become iconic. Yet here, Weaver is stranded and unconvincing. Even worse is the film’s sadly uncompelling lead. Sam Worthington hardly makes an impression as he is forced to utter the most obvious declarations and dumbed down musings of the “I’m just a grunt” variety that would give any Marine a bad name. Jake comes off as frankly…stupid for much of the time and he was no one I really wanted to follow. It was as if Cameron simply scribbled something down just to get his characters to move on towards the very next spectacle he wanted to SHOW you. Because his actors were saddled with the most ridiculous utterances, I couldn’t believe anything they were saying. At the screening I attended, by the film’s final third, a patron began cackling loudly and often. While it was deeply irritating, I have to say that I almost felt like joining him.

I will say that Stephen Lang and Zoe Saldana, somehow transcend the unfortunately weak dialogue and characterizations. Lang brings a loathsome energy to his one-note military villain. Moreover, Saldana is definitely the shining star of the entire film as she has somehow embodied her alien character with ferocious passion and empathy. She nearly makes her a believably flesh and blood creature you feel for. Alas, she cannot save the entire production single-handedly.

If Cameron’s actual writing was pitched at the exact same level as his visuals and direction, “Avatar’ would definitely be a seismic film for the ages. Yet for me, as it stands, I unfortunately have to utilize a “Titanic” metaphor. If “Avatar” is the mighty ship setting sail into our collective multiplexes with Cameron the filmmaker at the helm, then Cameron the writer is the proverbial iceberg that seriously damaged and nearly sunk the whole enterprise.

Again, this is not a disaster. Just a fumble from a filmmaker who always makes a spectacular touchdown.

(SIDE NOTE: I did not see this film in 3D. I tend to think of 3D as nothing but a gimmick—and I really don’t want to fool around with putting on glasses over my real glasses. Mostly, no technique can make up for bad writing and in this case, even enhanced visualizations couldn’t make up for the lack of literate power.)