Avatar-IMAX 3-D

HIS:

There can be no question as to the astounding technical achievement that is “Avatar”. It is undoubtedly both the finest looking feast for the eyes you’ve ever seen and the very future of cinema. It’s groundbreaking. As important a leap in technology as the Lumiere Bros discovering the moving image. Indeed, the very idea of where film can now go with this stunning new 3-dimensional clarity married to a great script leaves me salivating. Alas,there’s the rub with this particular movie. Avatar definitely isn’t blessed with a great script. In fact,it’s possibly one of the cheesiest,most cliche-ridden screenplays of the year. Anyone interested in plot(?) or any kind of character development will be left with their head spinning in disbelief.

The story essentially revolves around such an obvious premise it’s rather poor. As George W Bush(sorry…Giovanni Ribisi) leads his military into annihilating a foreign citizenry in order to mine precious oil(sorry….minerals),all led by General Petraeus(sorry…Stephen Lang) we encounter the usual ropey star-crossed lovers syndrome James Cameron mined to similar effect in Titanic.

I’ll confess, the first time I saw Titanic I was amazed at what I saw….in a very good way. The boundaries of technology had been applied to help tell an incredible story based in human emotion and more importantly, truth. Sure, the Romeo & Juliet thing was a little tepid but I understood the necessity of having characters with which to guide us through the story. Avatars characters have no discernible,real-life qualities whatsoever. In fact, no matter how awed I was by the sights and sounds of the planet Pandora it never disguised the fact that I was watching a movie primarily made up of blue CGI aliens. If the new augmented, instant reality created so incredibly by FX veteran Rob Legato could be handed over to someone who actually cared about a human storyline and not just bigger, better,louder,faster I think we could have seen something historic.

Commenting on the movie alone, which by the way you simply have to see in 3-D Imax or not at all, the score by James Horner is very ‘jaunty’ and tribal and way below the composers usual standards. Likewise the acting is pretty average too. Obviously it’s tough to comment on performances mainly rendered in motion capture although Zoe Saldana stood out at least. Sam Worthington is the lead of some of Hollywoods biggest movie franchises yet I’ve still to see any discernible charisma from him. Not that he so much puts a foot wrong, just doesn’t leave any impression at all. Stephen Lang,w hile clearly having a lot of fun, comes across as one-dimensional too. All of which have the script to blame.

Avatar is also an environmentalist movie. Tree-huggers of the world will rejoice at it’s message of being one with the flow of nature and ‘speaking’ to the animals but this may lose a few of the films more core audience of young males who will lap up the huge explosions and space-ships. In fact, if the idea of an elongated final sequence of a robot battling an alien excites you…no doubt this will be your favourite film ever. As for the rest of us,I was left wondering what this technology in the hands of Terence Malick would offer,as this is just a re-hash of his superb ‘The New World’ anyway. Pocahontas and Jamestown,Virginia in 3-D Imax? Sounds fantastic!!

Technically: A++

Film: D (for dud).

HER:

Sold out in theatres all over NYC, lead to a heightened anticipation of the film Avatar. I was fortunate enough a few months ago, to see a 20 minute sneak peak of this and it definitely peaked my interest. Of course, seeing something with a new 3-D technology MUST be seen in Imax 3-D and that’s where I headed…Glasses on, and I was in -

It was an absolute optical feast, from the word go. The 3-D not only jumped out of the screen, it was as if the characters were living this experience in front of you. Gone are the 3-D days of a sword that just popped out to your face, or the one item that popped from the screen. This is 3-D that lived there….in front of you. A glimpse into the Na’vi culture and all that surrounds it. The flight of their characters was absolutely breath-taking and the color was brighter, deeper, as if a paint brush was taken to the next level of vividness. The Na’vi characters skin was living, and their movements made them look as if they were real people who were just cast in this film.

That was the absolute plus side of this experience and makes going to see this an absolute MUST! (in the theatre) Now the downside was the story. The Na’vi are NOT real characters that were cast in this film. They’re made up people in a made of planet called Pandora. The general basis of any movie is a script. Something that people can relate to, on a human level. Avatar tried to do that with the story, but fell very short, I think because they weren’t dealing with real people.  Taking the Na’vi people and creating a story on par to the Native Americans was smart. We can relate to that…a people living off the land peacefully and tapping into the Earth and all its wonders, is very real. Then having someone who has more fire power and trying to extinguish them for personal financial gain of that land.

I really don’t know where the downfall was in this – but the human/Na’vi transactions seemed silly, in a Transformers type of way. The only stand out for me was Zoe Saldana, who reached through the photo-realistic CGI Character, of Neytiri and created a complex, emotional character. Where the rest of the cast (and there were some big names in this) just stayed 2 dimensional which could have to do with the script itself.

There is a message in this film, that will resonate with many people. And it is a story that is not new to film - Think “The New World”. With all that said, it definitely has some great qualities that I don’t want to spoil – it’s meant to be seen in Imax 3-D, but unfortunately as I’ve said before of blockbusteres – Turn off your brain for a few hours and you’ll enjoy the ride…

I’m going to go with HIS and rate this in two categories -

Technically:A

Film: C-

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~ by Film Snobs on December 28, 2009.