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Well, the reviews not in 3D. That would just be weird.
Before i'd seen Avatar, i had heard quite a few positive things about it. Things like "It should sweep the oscars!" and "Best. Movie. Ever." Of course, fans gush about things incessantly by nature and inflate the value of the objects of their adoration. I, being the jaded, cynical realist that i am, knew this ahead of time and instantly dismissed all such praise as the mindless chatter that it was. After all, i was fooled by those irrational types before on other movies and i wanted Avatar to be measured on its own merits and not by the unrealistic standards set by the idiotic ramblings of fanboys.
Still, it's hard to ignore dozens of reviewers and friends all claiming the movie to be the best ever. Apparently, neither can anyone else as the theatre was absolutely packed! So, what is Avatar and why is it so special?
As near as i can tell, the only reason Avatar is getting the press it's receiving is because it's the first live action 3D movie. Sure, 3D in its current incarnation has been available for at least a year now, but it was largely relegated to such obscure works as those produced by Pixar, Disney, Universal Studios and Dreamworks.
In other words, 3D was pretty much wide spread by this point. But it was mostly used for animated movies and i suspect many film goers who consider themselves "mature" (ironicaly these are the least mature of our society) never watched anything animated before and were completely unaware of 3D technology having evolved past the red and blue paper glasses of yesteryear. After all, "animation's for kids!"
I, however, have seen movies in 3D before, so visually 3 dimensional characters alone are not enough to enthrall me to a story. I can say that Avatar, for the most part, uses the 3D well by purposefully creating a world like no other that draws your attention through beautiful colour pallettes and other-worldly designs. The 3D doesn't feel "wasted" as it did in, say, Up. Still, it's only an effect and once the allure has worn off, that's it.
But let's move past the special effects for a moment. What is Avatar? Let's peel back that elegant, 3-dimensional veneer it comes wrapped in and talk about the story.
Time for a brief plot run-down!
Minor Spoiler Alert!
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a former marine being sent to the far off planet (yes, it's actually a moon... i don't care) of Pandora. Pandora has large deposits of a certain macguffin that would sell for a large price on earth. Unfortunately, getting at the macguffin requires dealing with a group of natives who don't appreciate humanities not-so-gradual incursions.
As of the start of Avatar, the mining company has been dealing with the "native issue" with two different tactics. While private military contractors provide the metaphorical stick, Sigourney Weaver, playing Dr Grace (but i'll just call her Ripley, if it's ok with you) is trying to work out a more diplomatic approach using fake bodies of the natives, or avatars, that people can plug into and control down on Pandora in hopes of arranging peaceful coexistence. (No points for guessing the bad guys here, folks.)
Sam Worthington plugs into his avatar for a test run but is quickly separated off from Ripley and the others. He soon finds himself in the natives home territory and takes on the roll of a subserviant learner of the tribe's way of life in order to pass secrets on back to the military contractors.
However, it's not long after arriving in the tribe (less than 3 months, as stated in the movie), that Worthington begins to feel more at home with the natives and less with the humans. He starts to understand the fear they have of what human incursion will mean for their planet and the price of what's really at stake. It isn't long after this that he finds himself actively a part of the native's fight to protect their land from the invasive, wholesale exploitation of their planet by the human aggressors.
End of minor spoilers.
The plot is basically an excuse for the action. The MacGuffin, Unobtanium, is mentioned in passing expositive dialogue to establish this and then dropped forever after. The point of the movie is the action sequence at the end with all other things being secondary.
I also found the plot very predictable. Even the contrived coincidences of the story that arise are predictable since you sort of expect that they would've happened anyway, even if the movie didn't expressly tell you they could. I'm not saying that this ruined the movie for me, though. I'm much better at discerning plots than most people and it's important to note that a "predictable" story doesn't inherently mean a "bad" story. But all that being said, Avatar's plot is certainly nothing special.
Of course, as usual, there's the required-by-law love-story. This time, however, the relationship is between the main character's avatar and one of the natives. I guess that counts as a twist, but it really isn't much of one.
The characters themselves are nothing special. The head of the mining company (Giovanni Ribisi) is of particularly no importance. He throws out a few lines in the beginning of the movie but never really does anything to establish himself as a useful character and the movie promptly forgets about him once the primary conflict starts to heat up.
For some reason, many seem to have fallen in love with the main villain (Stephen Lang). He does a good job as the villain, no question, but the amounts of praise heaped on him is as over-the-top as the praise heaped on the movie. I guess that's to be expected, though.
Everyone else does an ok job portraying whoever it is they're portraying, but the movie really does centre on Sam Worthington's avatar and his love interest (Zoe Saldana).
There's also an environmental message that runs pretty deep throughout Avatar - not that that's a bad thing. Still, i'm an environmentalist (i refuse to say i "believe in" environmentalism, because that would imply it's some kind of blind faith - a view only the hopelessly deluded hold) but i couldn't help but feel a little turned off by the message. At least it wasn't as overpowering and distracting as, say, Captain Planet's messages (you know the ones i mean).
Overall i enjoyed Avatar. Does it deserve to win oscars in every category from Best Picture to Best Actor (as i've heard some claim)? Hell no (though that doesn't mean it won't)! But it's not a bad action movie, either, and the special effects are certainly top notch. It's just generally a fun ride.
I give Avatar 2.3 dimensions out of 3: B+.
A word of caution: if you do intend to see Avatar, do what i do and ignore the yammering fanboys; you'll be happier for it.
No artwork, but here's a photo manip
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