Review: Avatar

The problem with writing an AVATAR review a few weeks late is that all comparisons have already been made. Having never seen DANCES WITH WOLVES, I was going to go with FERNGULLY. I first made the comparison upon seeing the trailer for AVATAR and thought I was supremely clever before logging it away for later use. Then my mother echoed the same comparison and I knew I was in trouble.

Nearly every level-headed review of AVATAR I’ve read has made these comparisons and they’re not wrong. AVATAR has a derivative story. Period. I’ve heard arguments from people claiming that other classics like STAR WARS or LORD OF THE RINGS also have “borrowed” stories, but that’s not quite true. Those movies use archetypes to create characters and then place those familiar characters in new locales and stories. But AVATAR has a story that’s been told plenty of times already – many of which have been during my lifetime.

I loved FERNGULLY as a kid. Honestly, it’s probably the reason I recycle and don’t scoff at NBC’s frequent “Green” weeks. So you’d think seeing a movie that is almost note-for-note the same as FERNGULLY would be cool for me. But it wasn’t. Because AVATAR was just too similar, from the rough and tumble American invader to the environmentally-conscious female love interest… from the scary machinations of industry to the glowing, luminescent beauty of a rainforest. All AVATAR needed was a kooky sidekick played by Robin Williams and a cheesy song from Sheena Easton. (Well, AVATAR did have that ballad from Leona Lewis...)

So I was bored to tears by AVATAR’s story. Was I impressed by the visuals? Not so much.

Again, my youthful inexperience betrays me. I was only 8 years old when TOY STORY came out. I’ve grown up with computerized images – to the point that I prefer the exquisitely hand-drawn animation of Hayao Miyazaki or Golden Age Disney pictures. I’ve also grown up playing video games that have become increasingly more realistic-looking. So to me, AVATAR simply looked like an incredible video game.

I don’t mean to detract from James Cameron’s technical achievements. Clearly, AVATAR is a visual accomplishment. But the “game-changer” of cinema? If that’s true, then it’s also the end of cinema as we know it and that makes me sad.

All that aside, how did AVATAR fare for me as a film? When I wasn’t distracted by Sam Worthington’s terrible American accent (Would it have been so detrimental to the story to just let him be English or Australian?), there were moments that I enjoyed, mostly consisting of any moment Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri was onscreen. However, Stephen Lang’s Col. Quaritch is a Frankenstein’s monster of bad military characters from… well, any movie where the military is depicted in a negative light. I found myself laughing out loud at most of his lines, delivered in a convincing machismo, yet unable to rise above the awful writing. “Shut your piehole” and “Let’s boogie?” Seriously?

Giovanni Ribisi is adequate, if a little one-note in his portrayal of a corporate bigwig assigned to the planet Pandora to mine it for resources. Sigourney Weaver is bewildering as the lead scientist on the avatar project. One minute, she’s chain-smoking and storming around the camp, the next she’s reading to Na’vi children. Weaver is fine in the role, but I was too distracted by the plot holes she seemed to stand for. If she’s been there for some time, why don’t the Na’vi have a better grasp of English? Why are they still confused by the idea of an avatar? These questions are unimportant, but when you’ve already heard the main story a million times before, you start to focus on the details.

Overall, AVATAR was billed as a must-see-in-theaters event – and it was. But is it necessarily a great film? Not in my opinion. I certainly don’t believe it deserves to be named our Best Picture this year come Oscar time. The movie looks good, but so did DISTRICT 9, which only cost $30 million to make. Now that’s an achievement.