Review: Avatar

James Cameron’s entire career has seemingly been about doing whatever he wanted and proving everyone else wrong. My favorite quote of his is about Titanic:

“I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to a shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie. Titanic was about ‘fuck you’ money,”

Well if Titanic was about “fuck you money”, then Avatar, with its reported budget of close to $500 million after marketing costs, must be about “S my D money”. I’m not going to talk about the plot, because you either already know it or you’re better off going in fresh.

What I will say first is you must see this film in IMAX 3D. This film raised the bar to new heights on the kind of visuals, sound, and action be expected from fantasy and action films. The final hour of this film is easily the best of the year and the words “edge of your seat” don’t do it justice. You will be fully wrapped into this world and be completely blown away about whats on the screen.

Now yes, Cameron’s weak spot is his dialogue and story. The dialogue is corny and less poetic then it is trying to be and the story seems like a pseudo rehashing of Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai (a bad movie and a great movie). However, the same, and worse in respect to the dialogue, can be said about Star Wars 32 years ago. Its by no means terrible, just not Lord of the Rings in quality of writing, and really its not why you are paying your $15. After the first hour, shit gets nuts. What Cameron was able to do visually, with 3D cameras and new MOCAP technology he invented, is easily the best of the year, decade, ever.

The acting is actually better than I thought it would be, and star Sam Worhtington hits all the right notes as Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-Marine who is brought into the Avatar experiment after the death of his twin brother.  Zoe Saldana is wonderful as the fully digital Na’vi Neytiri; its a performance done entirely in MOCAP, but it doesn’t really lose anything because of it. The rest of the cast, including Cameron favorite Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang, are fantastic.

How Cameron is doubted every time he makes a film is beyond me, because on some level, he always delivers something spectacular and innovative. I guess he just likes saying “Fuck you”.

Grade: A or ★★★★ ½ (Out of 5)