Movie Review: Avatar

I know it's extremely late for a review of Avatar right now. But then, I wanted to wait and see how it would do in the theaters before I came to a conclusion. 2009 could have easily been one of the more quiet years of the new millenium. Taylor Swift winning Grammies, Obama's approval rates falling. Hell, the biggest news might have been Jay Leno's then departure from the Tonight Show.

And then came Avatar. Like a lumbering hulk, an excellent PR campaign slowly lulled the audience to come give it a chance. And almost everyone did, some did again and again. And thus, it now is the highest grossing movie of all time. Almost surely, Avatar has gone down as maybe one of the finer creations of the new millenium.

Or has it? I've tried my best to analyze James Cameron's epic and this is all I could muster up from the vast myriad of thoughts that floated through my head on watching it.:

Avatar as almost all of us know by now, begins off on the faraway (literally) land of Pandora where humans have colonised the land for mining a special material called unobtanium (yes, oh so original!). However, the atmosphere of Pandora is not habitable by human life. Hence, it is impossible for the miners to go out of a special containtment unit. This causes the biggest problem for the mining corporation as there is intelligent life on Pandora, though it mostly resembles the kind of African/South American Tribal people shown sometimes on National Geographic. And also, this tribe has its homeland based on what is the largest unobtanium deposit on the planet.

So to communicate with these intelligent group of people is essential and using a certain machination which has been discovered there, a research team funded by the corporation creates a way to enable human minds to control these alien bodies. How it happens, is never told. And so the prime character of the movie, Jake Scully joins this program on the death of his brother, dives into the tribal or Na'vi world and in the style of our beloved Kevin Costner, joins in with them against the humans who got him there in the first place. And of course, he falls in love with the Na'vi princess.

The great thing about Avatar is the absolutely stunning imagery. The scene where Scully and Neytiri, the princess make love is easily something out of a great psychedelic dream. Not to mention the gorgeous mountains and forests. It is said that Cameron spent over $300 million on making the movie. And I can tell you, every penny was worth it.

Also, the way in which the whole world is shown, the gritty machines, the scared, fierce animals is something that requires a lot of original thinking and Avatar is full of it. Almost every frame is entirely unique and from the tatoos on the aliens to each feather in the plumage of the Toruk, a fierce flying predator; you can see how meticulously crafted and processed this movie is. However for me, sadly that's all that was incredible in the movie. Which is a lot considering the main calling card of Avatar is in fact its scenery and special effects.

I saw the movie with my friends on New Year's 2010 and after 15 minutes I whispered into my friend's ear: So this guy will fall in love with the tribal aliens and in the end side with them! And to my shock, that was exactly how the movie turned out. James Cameron, for all his technical brilliance and innovation should have invested at least some of those $ 300 million on getting a decent scriptwriter. Because the story is exactly where Avatar falters.

Here are a few things I never understood. Why on earth would such a huge corporation spend millions on creating this friendship program for a bunch of people their comrades don't even care about? Also, in the end they do use force to destroy the people. Instead of forcing your men to fight in a land where they cannot even breathe naturally, why don't they just use a large scale bomb like a Daisy Cutter or an airstrike to clear the place?

However, all of this paled in front of the question of how billions of people could cheer a bunch of men getting mauled and killed by beasts? The sad fact is, Avatar completely opinionates its characters into black and white. So you never see the dead soldier's wife waiting for him at home, or the tribal people even wanting to talk it out. Instead it shows the humans as repressors and the aliens as the repressed. This is naive, asinine writing which is only allowed to pass because of the visual experience the movie provides.

Fact is, Avatar is a bad movie encased with so much glitter and gloss that you don't care if its bad. Instead, you consider it an experience like your first heart-thumping trek to the top of a mountain or even your first kiss. Thing is, I don't think Avatar should win Best Movie at the Oscars because there are many better movies this year. Instead for visuals, direction and anything else technical, I think it should win.

Some people including Steven Spielberg (oh my god!) called this to be one of the best movies ever on par with something like Star Wars. However, I don't believe so as not only does Avatar lack the character depth of Star Wars but it also lacks the kind of punch of remembrance that most great movies have; like Darth Vader's first entry, Don Corleone talking to addressing Michael or Charlie Kane applauding his wife's "performance" . Instead it just leaves you breathless as the movie progresses and fizzles out by the end.

I don't think anything can justify turning on your fellow men like that, most people who do interfere are called terrorists and this script lacks enough depth to carry that topic. Well atleast its not nominated ofr Best Original Screenplay.

So here's the verdict:::

Visuals : 10/10
Acting : 7/10
Pacing : 9/10
Story : 5/10
Originality : 9/10
Impact : 7/10

Totally:: 79/100.....

Fair Enough. So if you haven't seen it, catch it on Blue Ray at least. But make sure you rent the disc.