Avatar take us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads an epic battle to save a civilization. The story's hero is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former Marine confined to a wheelchair. Bitter and disillusioned, he's still a warrior at heart. All Jake ever wanted was something worth fighting for, and he finds it in the place he least expected: on a distant world. Jake has been recruited to join an expedition to the moon Pandora, which corporate interests are strip-mining for a mineral worth $20 million per kilogram on Earth. To facilitate their work, the humans use a link system that projects a person's consciousness into a hybrid of humans and Pandora's indigenous humanoids, the Na'vi. This human-Na'vi hybrid—a fully living, breathing body that resembles the Na'vi but possesses the individual humans thoughts, feelings and personality—is known as an "avatar." In his new avatar form, Jake can once again walk. His mission is to interact with and infiltrate the Na'vi with the hope of enlisting their help—or at least their acquiescence—in mining the ore. Complications arise when Jake falls in love with a beautiful Na'vi female (Zoe Saldana) who saves his life, leading to an epic conflict that will decide nothing less than the fate of an entire world.It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Visually stunning doesn't even begin to describe this film. And let's get this out of the way first, a nomination for Best Original Screenplay was not among Titanic's record 15 Oscar nominations, and Avatar is not different, the script and dialogue is atrocious. But let's be honest, this isn't supposed to be about the writing. It's about the visual spectacle, and on that level, Avatar is astounding. The actual story is fascinating; humans having avatars to infiltrate an alien culture to learn and interact with them, so if some of the plot points are a little ludicrous, you can look beyond it because Cameron keeps you occupied with sumptuous visuals. The world that he created is visual eye-candy, with almost every color in the spectrum represented, in locales that range from mountain tops to rain forests to the desert. And it's inhabitants are equally as exciting. The Na'vi are incredibly lifelike (albeit a little cat people-esque), and when they interact with the humans, the lines between live action and CGI become extremely blurred - what's created and what's real?
There was more than one scene that legitimately left me breathless; the creativity of this film and Cameron and his associates is astounding. No wonder it took him almost 15 years to make this, the attention to detail is incredible. I had a few minor quibbles in addition to the horrendous script, but overall, this is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying films I've ever seen. It has gotten across the board rave reviews, and is doing fairly well early in the awards season. In a year that will have 10 Best Picture nominees, this will easily make the cut (I'd guess it'd even make it if there were only 5 slots), and Cameron is almost assured a nod for direction and a truckload of visual nominations.
I've never seen anything like this, such a life like and seamless melding of live-action and CGI. For months, this has been billed as a game changer in the world of film, and if this is the future of the American cinema, I can't wait to see what comes next. See this, and see it in Imax. Avatar is why films are shown in Imax.
Grade: A
It would have received an A+ if the script was better.
No comments:
Post a Comment