Avatar - Big Movie, Big Effects, Small Story

The big question is, Should you go and see this movie? There's been a lot of hype; a drumbeat that's hard to resist.

Well, yes, for the seamless, not over-the-top 3-D effects, for the computer generated scenes, and for the phenomenal way James Cameron, the director, has furthered the technology of creating computerized humans (in this case humanoids) on screen that are indistinguishable from the real thing. Those faces have all the quirks and little gestures that their human actor counterparts possess. And you know they're not just actors in blue suits because no actors are ten feet tall.

No, whatever you've heard about the technology, it's all there. If you're hoping for a step forward then you won't be disappointed.

But that disappointment will rear its ugly head when it comes to the plot, because the plot is just something to hang the technology on. It's really an old story, but then I guess they all are, except that you're supposed to make the old new somehow. You hate to use the word in a $300 million movie, but cliché really does work.

So, what is the plot? Very simple, rapacious company destroys everything in its path to acquire a valuable mineral called - don't shoot the messenger here - unobtainium, on a world called Pandora (like Pandora's Box, get it). The company is guarded by marines who apparently now work for private industry. The head marine, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), comes right out of an old comic book. You know, the ones with a close-up of a hardened sergeant chomping on a cigar with the large balloon words "Get out there and take that beach". I can't imagine the marines being happy with this movie.

One marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic whose brother has been killed, decides to take his place to help the company proceed with its work. The company wants to get the natives, the Ha'vi, ten foot blue people with catlike ears and tails, to move away from a rich deposit of unobtainium. He'll do it along with the help of scientist, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) in what is really a throwaway role, by having their consciousness transferred into the bodies of avatars, Ha'vi stand-ins for themselves that can breathe the atmosphere of Pandora.

By learning about the Ha'vi and ingratiating himself with them Sully hopes to convince them it's best to move on (think Indians moving away from richer land so the whites can have it). The thing about the Ha'vi is that they are at one with nature and I don't mean just in some New Age get-together. They really mean it to the point where they can communicate with life on the planet both present and past epitomized by the Tree of Souls. Technologically they've advanced as far as the bow and arrow but can fly all over the place once they communicate with giant birds through what look like fiber optics in their hair. The planet has other tribes based on different aspects of nature, but the Ha'vi reside below what they call Hometree, a tremendously large tree.

The Ha'vi live on a plush moon of a humungous planet that fills the sky. Plants light up at night and the landscape is full of strange creatures mostly based on Earth forms you'd recognize. After Jurassic Park you won't be too surprised by how they interact with everyone. Sully is saved from some of them by a female Ha'vi, Neytiri, and this creates the love element. Eventually Sully, in his avatar form, becomes so much a part of the Ha'vi he is inducted into their society and, predictably, begins siding with them. It's not hard for him considering all the stock, unsavory characters running the human corporation. Here, again cropping up, is the idea of the noble savage, the purity of the natural life against despotic civilization.

But Colonel Quaritch sees this as simply "going native", a term heard a lot in the nineteenth century. Actually, for all the computers, fancy guns, and space ships, you could be watching Europeans in nineteenth century Africa. Very little, it appears has been learned over the centuries. You can definitely forget about Star trek's Prime Directive. The Ha'vi actually have an African quality about them along with some of the movies musical score.

Naturally, the Ha'vi don't want to move and this sets up the final battle that turns out to be human technology against the planet itself. Naturally, Sully aids them in what David Brooks in a New York Times editorial neatly points out is the time honored story of the "White Messiah", the outsider (European) who saves the day for the natives. The ending is the overkill so many movies seem to need along with an illogical turn of events. In essence, imagination was in short supply when it came to the conclusion.

I had high hopes for this movie and it does deliver on the technology side, but it feels shallow even with so much going on. I think it was a mistake to base the plot on crass commercialism. It happens, of course, but the world created by Cameron holds much more promise for a different kind of movie. Simpler, perhaps, but with more depth (I'm having a hard time figuring out if this movie had any subplots).

But the use of advancing technology has to start somewhere. The movie is a showcase and most people are going to enjoy the computer-generated effects, as they should. It's like the first time you saw Jurassic Park. There's definitely a "Wow" factor. But I'm not sure you'll want to watch it over and over again (actions fans probably will), especially on a home screen. Characterization does matter. Nonetheless, it's worth seeing once and it is a tribute to one man's vision and tenacity.