Features > Movie Reviews > Avatar…

Amazing to look at. And the storytelling is never less than expert, but the yarn itself… Well, let’s start there, since Titanic director James Cameron and his team have been remarkably successful at keeping it under wraps.

The movie is set almost entirely on the planet Pandora in the year 2154. A marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthingon) is tasked with controlling an organic (but lab-grown) avatar in the physical form of the native population, the Na’vi, a jungle tribe of tall blue bipeds with simian tails and human features. When Jake is hooked up to his avatar it’s as if he becomes him. When the avatar sleeps, Jake returns to his own body and his own people.

Sully’s mission is two-fold. The scientific team led by Sigourney Weaver?s Grace use the avatars to learn more about the Na’vi and earn their trust. But the operation is being paid for by one of those all-powerful corporate mining companies who have the military in their pocket. Their interest in Pandora is limited to the reserves of a mineral (“Unobtainium”?) lying underneath the Na’vi’s sacred home. If Sully can negotiate the tribe’s voluntary departure in three months everyone will be happy. If not, then the information he gleans will facilitate forced evacuation.

In the age-old tradition of undercover agents, Sully “goes native”, learning how the Na’vi live in harmony with nature and not once missing his Nintendo DS or his High Definition 40” screen.

It’s Dances with Wolves in outer space – or ‘Dances with Blue Monkeys’. Cameron has even cast Native American actor Wes Studi as the clan chief.

If the story is old hat it’s been dressed up to look better than new.

Cameron has created an alien eco-system from scratch, and the flora and fauna are rendered with such exquisite detail this may be the first blockbuster in which David Attenborough would feel at home.

As a creature feature it knocks spots off Peter Jackson?s King Kong and makes good on the potential promised by Steven Spielberg?s Jurassic Park nearly twenty years ago. This is a landmark in computer generated effects work, a three-dimensional animated movie that looks and feels like live action – or maybe the other way round. Gamers, in particular, will feel at home in this brave new world.

The imagery evokes Hayao Miyazaki?s anime films – there are mountains that float in the air, flying reptiles and strange, ethereal objects that look like jellyfish. We’re reminded that the Titanic director is an avid diver, because his jungle resembles a spectacular coral reef. At night the plants have a phosphorescent glow. When the Na’vi tread through it, the ground beneath their feet lights up (I couldn’t help thinking of Michael Jackson?s Billie Jean video).

Cameron?s utopian vision will be scorned in some quarters (though District 9 has been praised to the skies for a similarly bald metaphor). Dramatically speaking, I think it would have been more interesting if the military and corporate interests personified by Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi weren’t vilified in such melodramatic fashion, and if the Na’vi weren’t quite so romanticized. But if you’ve seen Joe Berlinger?s documentary Crude, or any one of a dozen similar films about the way corporations devastate the indigenous peoples of what are now known as developing countries in order to get at oil, gold or copper you’ll have to admit it’s a pertinent subject.

There is another aspect to Pandora worth thinking about. This is a planet in which all living things are connected by measurable electrical currents. When the Na’vi ride a six-legged horse or hop onto a winged dragon, the first thing they do is plug into its circuitry. It’s a techno-geek’s twenty first century pantheism, a new gloss on the counter-culture slogan “Turn on, tune in and drop out”. Jake Sully’s out of body experience is simply another extension of this inter-connectivity, as if role playing games might one day lead to a profound philosophical empathy, a higher human consciousness.

Which would be nice.

For now, though, most of us want some trigger action in our entertainment, and Avatar delivers on that level too, with an epic showdown that stands comparison with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

I can’t say I was moved, and Cameron will never top his Terminator movies in terms of excitement, but Avatar lives up to the hoopla, this $250 million movie is going to be a huge hit.