| AVATAR |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Wednesday, 06 January 2010 12:47 |
 Fifteen years is a long time. Pretty much your entire Primary, Intermediate and High School years, rolled into one. Indeed, since 1994 we have had the Spice Girls, furbys, 'American Idol', Lindsay Lohan’s entire career... and more. To put it completely into context, every one of the 'Lord Of The Rings' films have been developed, produced and universally loved since 1994. Yet fifteen years is also the exact amount of time that James Cameron has spent developing ‘AVATAR', his first film since 'Titanic'. Thankfully, he is finally ready to show it off. Set in the future, this is a time ruled by greedy corporations hell-bent on milking every last dollar from the Universe. Here we learn of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paralysed Marine who has been inducted into the Avatar program on the moon Pandora. Offered with a chance to get his legs back, Sully must pilot an 8ft. tall Avatar, a body created to look like the very disgruntled natives of Pandora. As he tries to reconcile the two people, those who want to save the land and those who want to mine it, he becomes ever intertwined with his adopted people - so much so, that he no longer know where he fits in the world.  It’s quite a fun storyline, full with conflicts of interests and questions of purpose. Yet the one thing I found with 'Avatar' is it turns out to be bone-grindingly juvenile. Cameron reportedly wrote it in two weeks... and I am not implying that’s a bad thing... I will just let the story speak for itself. Essentially we have two people, the angry capitalists, and the amulet shaking, Mother-nature loving tribal natives. And that’s about as complex as the story gets. Oh apart from the love interest. Love complicates everything, and when Sully falls for Princess Neytiri of the Na’vi people (Zoe Saldana), things get shaken up. So we have tree-huggers, we have bulldozers - and we have a man trapped between love and his legs. ‘Avatar’ in a nutshell.  Yet if you thought for one minute you would go and see ‘Avatar’ for the groundbreaking and original storyline - stop right there. Because ‘Avatar’ is well worth the movie ticket. Indeed, it’s well worth the 15 year wait for it to be made. This is because Cameron has truly pushed out the boat in getting this movie made. Every little detail possible has been thought of in this lush, luminescent jungle world - and the result truly is a thing of beauty. I like to think that Cameron has created a functional ecosystem, with creatures completely in balance with one another. Filmed with a new type of camera, with stereoscopic vision more in tune with the human eye, this movie is a visual feast. Even without the 3D, you feel like you can just up and brush the leaves, or fall through the air.   I am not going to talk about the acting, because I believe it’s another thing which is irrelevant when it comes to this movie. Heavy weights like Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi are great, but 'Avatar' doesn’t need any Best Actor Nominations. The coolest thing I found was in the way that Cameron managed to keep the actors hard at work, even when they are totally unrecognisable as blue CGI aliens. Worthington still has a cheeky smile on his face and a glint in his eye; which you can tell is the real deal, not just computers.  Go and see this movie. Not because it’s a perfect story. Go and see it because Cameron put so much detail into it that the Avatars actually have one more finger (five) than the Na-vi people they are trying to impersonate (four). Go and see it because for two and a half hours you fly through the trees, see impossible creatures and fight alongside the Na’vi people. Believe me, after this film I felt mentally exhausted. So much so I needed a long shower and a long sleep afterwards.  |
