{"id":7259,"date":"2009-12-12T16:34:17","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T16:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=7259"},"modified":"2009-12-18T19:56:12","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T19:56:12","slug":"avatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2009\/12\/12\/avatar\/","title":{"rendered":"Avatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Neyteri<\/p>\n

The long awaited blockbuster from director James Cameron<\/a> is a remarkable visual achievement and a thrilling sci-fi drama.<\/p>\n

Anticipation over what Avatar<\/a><\/strong> would be has reached fever pitch in recent months as speculation mounted: Would the 3D change the way audiences see cinema? Why did it cost so much? What’s with all the blue aliens? And why is it called Avatar?<\/p>\n

The less than ecstatic reaction<\/a> in various quarters to the trailers and preview footage in the summer, combined with some sluggish tracking numbers<\/a>, were probably enough to make folks at 20th Century Fox a little nervous.<\/p>\n

But the simple fact is that Avatar really delivers. For the 163 minute running time it takes you on an adventure and into a different world with all manner of thrilling sights and sounds.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Set in the year 2154, the story and centres on a wheelchair bound US marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington<\/a>), sent on a mission to the planet of Pandora, replacing his recently deceased twin brother.<\/p>\n

It has been partly colonised by humans who are trying to mine it for rare minerals because Earth is on the bring of ecological collapse.<\/p>\n

Sully’s mission is to mix with Pandora’s native aliens the Na’vi by becoming an Avatar, a hybrid alien which he ‘becomes’ under lab conditions, as if in a dream.<\/p>\n

Aided by the chief scientist (Sigourney Weaver<\/a>) in charge of the project, he finds a way of blending in with\u00a0the natives after the hawkish military commander (Stephen Lang<\/a>) recruits him to be a spy.<\/p>\n

But he soon comes to fall in love with the planet and its people after being rescued by Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldana<\/a>) and finding himself at home on amongst their culture.<\/p>\n

This causes inevitable tensions with the human colony’s desire to exploit their land.<\/p>\n

\"Avatar<\/p>\n

The most immediate thing about experiencing the film is how quickly you settle into the world of Pandora.<\/p>\n

Forget all the Gawker-led<\/a> hipster jibes about the Na’vi looking like smurfs<\/a> – once you are \u00a0inside the cinema they look and feel like real characters, which is a major tribute to the CGI artists and actors\u00a0who brought them to life.<\/p>\n

But it is the stunning vistas and trippy details of Pandora that will really wow audiences.<\/p>\n

Cameron waited a long time for technology to catch up with his expansive, psychedelic visions and the result is another landmark in cinema visuals, up there with the water in The Abyss<\/a>, the T-1000 in T2<\/a>, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park<\/a> and various landmark steps over this decade such as Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean 2<\/a> and Benjamin Button<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In utilising new advances in technology, Avatar goes in further in pushing the envelope: alien landscapes, major characters and various creatures are rendered with astounding detail and richness.<\/p>\n

If you stay and watch the end credits you’ll see an unbelievable amount of visual effects artists and several different houses, although the primary credit goes to the\u00a0WETA Digital<\/a> team led by Joe Letteri<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At times it is so good that that you begin to take it for granted, which in a strange way almost makes it a victim of its own brilliance.<\/p>\n

Another important aspect of Avatar is that it was filmed with the proprietary Fusion digital 3-D camera system<\/a> (developed by Cameron and Vince Pace) which\u00a0are stereoscopic<\/a> cameras that ‘simulate’ human sight.<\/p>\n

I saw it in 3D and was struck at how seamless it was. There was no obvious pointy images, but a visual design that draws you subconsciously\u00a0into the screen. It will also work in 2D but I think 3D will prove the richer experience.<\/p>\n

There’s been a lot of talk about this film being a game changer for 3D in mainstream cinema. I’m not sure every film at a multiplex should (or needs to) be shown like that, but\u00a0for tentpole movies Avatar is a big leap forward.<\/p>\n

Certainly it could influence writers, directors and producers to be more imaginative in how they approach the visual design of a blockbuster.<\/p>\n

But what of the themes and subtext? For such a high profile film from a major Hollywood studio, it is a fairly stinging critique of US militarism and imperialism, firmly on the side of the indigenous insurgency with a pro-environmental message to boot – at one point a tree is literally hugged and spoke to!<\/p>\n

\"AvatarThe sight of futuristic US helicopters landing on jungles and firing incendiary bombs on the native Na’vi echoes Vietnam<\/a> and the arc of the story carries more than a whiff of Dances With Wolves<\/a> or even The New World<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is also a certain irony that it was mostly funded by Rupert Murdoch<\/a>‘s News Corp and makes you wonder if the Aussie media mogul got the memo about hundreds of millions of his dollars being spent on a film with such a liberal message.<\/p>\n

It could certainly be interpreted as a big, middle-fingered salute to the Bush-Cheney era – a critique of US imperialism that embraces empathy with other races and respect for the environment.<\/p>\n

The irony of course is that this is likely to wash right over the heads of Fox News<\/a> junkies and Sarah Palin fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It isn’t exactly subtle, but props must go to Cameron for being so on the nose with the issues.<\/p>\n

Just weeks after more US troops were sent to Afghanistan and the week global leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss the environment, it could hardly be more topical – impressive for a sci-film set in the middle of the next century.<\/p>\n

There are some minus points: the script contains some clunky dialogue; some sequences appear trimmed to keep the running time down; the originality of the visuals isn’t matched by the story; Leona Lewis singing over the end credits and at times the villains and their motives are a little one-dimensional.<\/p>\n

I’d be wary of talking about Avatar as another Titanic<\/a>. For various reasons it will be hard to ever crack the runaway box office success of that film and I don’t feel it will sweep the Oscar race this year (although the technical and visual effects awards are in the bag).<\/p>\n

But if word of mouth catches fire, there could certainly be a slow-burn must-see effect – like with Titanic – that turns it into the kind of film people have to see in order to talk about it.<\/p>\n

From The Terminator through to Titanic, James Cameron has always been a great technical director, even if his films have had their downsides.<\/p>\n

By pushing relentlessly at how films look on screen he has helped raised standards of how we view movies and for that he deserves great credit.<\/p>\n

Avatar demonstrates again that he understands one of the basic truths about cinema, which is its ability to lift audiences out of themselves for a couple of hours and make them feel giddy in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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