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Uma das coisas mais raras que podem acontecer com quem vai muito ao cinema, é ser surpreendido por um filme cujas expectativas estavam lá no alto. Normalmente ou a gente se decepciona, ou acaba gostando exatamente o esperado. No caso de Avatar, não há expectativa capaz de estragar a grandiosidade do projeto no qual se está prestes a entrar. Não se preocupem com relação à possíveis spoilers ao longo desta resenha, pois garanto que nada do que você ler ou souber a respeito de Avatar, vai diminuir sua opinião ao término da sessão.

Que este é o projeto mais ambicioso, mais difícil, mais longo, mais caro, e mais tudo da história do cinema e da carreira de James Cameron, todo mundo já está cansado de saber. Sendo assim não vou perder tempo com o que todo mundo já sabe, e vou me ater aos principais motivos pelo qual você PRECISA participar deste marco no cinema mundial. Sim, Avatar realmente é um divisor de águas na 7ª arte.

Não sei se todos terão ou sentirão as mesmas emoções que senti. Mas para mim, Avatar não é um filme. É uma verdadeira experiência cinematográfica, que só poderia ter sido realizada por alguém movido à paixão, que esperou anos para que fosse possível e viável contar a história que queria contar. Tudo bem que 99% do público não vai saber o que exatamente ali no filme não poderia ter sido feito antes. Sendo assim, esqueça de tudo ao seu redor e se permita entrar neste mundo que se parece com tudo e ao mesmo tempo com nada que foi feito até aqui.

A história se passa em torno de Jake Sully, um fuzileiro naval paraplégico que é levado em uma missão ao planeta Pandora. O planeta é habitado pela raça dos Na’vi, que possuem habitat e idioma próprios, e a superfície contém um gás letal para os humanos. Para sobreviver no solo de Pandora, foram criados os “avatares”, que são misturas de DNA humano com DNA dos Na’vi, e podem ser controlados à distância pelo seu respectivo dono.

Em termos de roteiro, o filme poderia ser apenas mais uma aventura de ficção científica, onde o mocinho se aventura em um novo mundo, é capturado pelos nativos, e precisa provar que é diferente dos outros, até ganhar a confiança de todos, e minutos depois perder tudo que conquistou por culpa do vilão cheio de más intenções. E visto de longe, Avatar realmente não vai muito longe desta trama. Mas o grande diferencial, é que desta vez James Cameron (graças às novas tecnologias) faz com que o espectador participe da aventura, fazendo-o se sentir ali presente, no meio da floresta, sendo parte do grupo. A chamada “imersão” no filme, a que todos se referem, realmente funciona. E se você assistir a versão 3D em IMAX, toda essa sensação triplica, com o som cristalino, a imagem de altíssima definição, e a tela gigantesca, que não deixa sobrar um pedacinho da parede sequer, para lembrá-lo de que está no cinema.

Ainda falando da imersão, é impressionante a riqueza de detalhes que Cameron empregou naquele planeta, fazendo tudo aquilo parecer de verdade, aliado ao 3D que dá a floresta uma sensação total de profundidade. É uma quantidade infinita de cores, sons, texturas (e por que não cheiros?) que te faz ter vontade de pegar o próximo vôo para Pandora. E é aqui que entra, na minha opinião, o grande acerto do roteiro. Ao invés de gastar uma longa introdução contando o que é Pandora, como surgiram os nativos, como sobrevivem, o que os humanos fazem lá, etc etc etc, Avatar vai direto ao assunto, e nos permite descobrir Pandora junto com Jake, que tampouco sabia muita coisa a respeito. Quanto mais ele usa seu avatar e aprende os costumes locais, mais vamos aprendendo sobre aquele universo. Parafraseando a piloto Trudy Chacon, no momento em que eles sobrevoam pela primeira vez as montanhas flutuantes de Pandora, ela diz aos companheiros: “vocês precisavam ver a cara de vocês”. Certamente era a mesma cara que estávamos fazendo ao sermos apresentados à cada novo detalhe do planeta.

Sobre a riqueza de detalhes, é preciso tirar o chapéu para James Cameron. Guardadas as devidas proporções, a toda hora me lembrava da genialidade de Tolkien, ao criar do zero tudo o que dizia respeito à Terra Média, como superfícies, vilarejos, habitantes, raças, povos, natureza, idiomas… O verdadeiro motivo pelo qual eu sempre gostei tanto do Tolkien, além das incríveis histórias que contava.

Com 150 minutos de pura ação quase ininterrupta, Cameron criou um mundo tão rico e vasto, que seria até possível ter feito um filme dividido em duas partes, apostando mais tempo em outras explicações, que por hora não fizeram tanta falta. E com apenas 2 semanas em cartaz, e mais de 300 milhões de dólares arrecadados, já se fala por aí em seqüência, saga, continuação, ou seja lá o que for. O fato é que, mesmo tendo em mãos um mundo infinito para explorar, não sei bem se é uma boa idéia já investir em uma continuação. Não só pelo fato do risco de não se alcançar o mesmo sucesso. Mas pelo fato de que Avatar foi tão bem construído e tão bem divulgado, que merece ser lembrado como o marco no cinema que está sendo. E isso pode muito bem ser pontuado por um único filme. Um grande projeto que demorou quase 15 anos para ser idealizado, e fará jus à todo e qualquer prêmio que vier a ganhar. Não tenho dúvidas que será indicado ao Oscar, e na minha opinião será mais do que merecido, ao menos o prêmio de Melhor Filme e Melhor Diretor, além dos prêmios técnicos que estão quase em mãos.

E pra finalizar, volto a dizer: se tiver oportunidade, não deixe de assistir ao filme em 3D na sala IMAX.

Where to start, where to start. Okay, here we go, Dances with Wolves 3D.

I resisted for ages to watch this movie because I expected it to be a waste of time and I was right, I should have listened to my instinct.

First of, yes, the CGI is amazing, brilliant and eyepopping. But CGI is not a creative discipline, it is technical and as such only a matter of time and money, not artistic ! Imagine a perfect picture of your room, is that are ? No, it is just technical, however, if you interpret the room, choose a specific angle, blur it, add something personal, it becomes an object d’art. Avatar is not a piece of art, it is utter and moronic white trash. Star Wars, Jurassic Park and even Cameron’s own Titanic had captivating stories but Avatar ? Story ? I did not see a story apart from the same movie I have seen a million times, cowboys and Indians, bla bla bla, boring.

There is a simple rule to test whether a movie has a good story. A good story sounds just as good and exciting on paper as it does on screen, Avatar fails that test . . .

What bothers me the most and this is why I loathe and hate that film and think it is, to put it plainly, offensive is its underlying right-wing assumptions. The natives are nothing but helpless fools and are subject to the white men’s mercy. Did anyone notice that it is actually the white man (Worthington) who becomes their “leader” ? Who delivers them from Evil ? I though we agreed that conquering and converting natives is a bad thing ? Is it not ? Take a dictionary and look up exploitation,colonialism and eurocentrism please.

While millions of people pay money for this shit and weep into their buttery popcorn (oh, the poor blue kangaroos). thousands of people in the world are exploited, enslaved and invaded by the Americans at this very moment !

FOR FUCK’S SAKE !

I walked out on it after 2 hours because I could literally (yes, not figuratively) feel how my IQ became lower and lower and lower.

Seriously. If you are “into” beautiful landscapes and exotic creatures, watch more documentaries such as Planet Earth or Terra, or do you need blue sex kittens to make it worth your while ? If you are “into” indigenous tribes, read books about it.

But whatever you do, do not watch such utter trash.

If you like fantasy and can find some balance between being underwhelmed by the story and overwhelmed by the visuals, then Avatar will live up to the hype. Be forewarned that the story is at best trite, at worst racist. I’m not sure if that’s the right term, but it does kind of rape and pillage every culture throughout history and an awful lot of films too – even Broadway (Cat People, any one?). I’ve heard it called Pocahontas in Space, Dances with Wolves on Pandora, etc., but it’s not just Native American lore that’s raided. Even sidestepping that, Avatar is filled with cinematic cliches from countless movies – many of which are superior to this one. Furthermore, it’s so predictable that you not only know what’s coming, but when. Okay, so it’s an awful movie. However, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, the special effects are amazing. The key here is that you can only get that if you see the IMAX 3D version. Screening it on your computer or even your HD TV would be like watching Willie Wonka in black and white, or the Indie 500 in slo-mo. In this 3D, you’re in the middle of the scene, as close to virtual reality as the average person can experience in this day and age. I’m sure one day it will look as hokey as the original Star Wars does now, but Star Wars will always be a classic. With Avatar, James Cameron might have revealed that he doesn’t know how to write a good, original story anymore, but he does know how to show one. Between that, some decent acting, and a big bag of popcorn, you can have fun if you want to.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Avatar at the biggest cinema screen in the UK: the BFI IMAX. Although I had to book over a month in advance it was well worth the wait as the visuals were truly stunning. In fact I was a bit of a wuss and felt slightly sick at the opening shot of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) spinning around in that cryogenic chamber at crazy ass angles. Let’s start with the cast – first off I don’t think Worthington was that great as a lead, he was pretty lacking in the charisma department and was much more likeable as his avatar. Zoe Saldana gave a good performance as the wild and free-spirited Neytiri, Jake’s love interest and Sigourney Weaver was good as scientist Grace Augustine. Michelle Rodriguez totally kicked ass as the Na’vi sympathiser Trudy Chacon and had some of the best lines in the film. Stephen Lang also gave a good performance as Miles Quaritch, a military numbskull programmed only for death and destruction, and Giovanni Ribisi played the ruthless corporate big shot Parker Selfridge infuriatingly well. Overall I thought the cast was strong but let’s face it, Avatar ain’t really about the cast it’s about the visuals and yes, they’re amazing. The night scenes are truly beautiful, with Pandora transformed into a phoscperescent wonderland home to all manner of amazing flora and fauna. Watching it in 3D at the IMAX gave the film mind-blowing depth and really enhanced the experience for me. Some folks have said the new age element of the film is a bit cheesy but I thought it worked well and I liked the film’s message about gaia and the connections that exist between all living things. The script also wasn’t as bad as I’d heard it was, just generic Hollywood schmaltz really, and although it could’ve been better I don’t think it took away from the film.

I can’t rate this film enough but you have to see it for the right reasons. Maybe it’s best to think of Avatar more as an event rather than a film. If you’re expecting an all-round masterpiece you’ll be disappointed, but if you can deal with a mediocre script and pretty poor leading man then you’ll be blown away by this film’s scale and beauty.

El veterano actor britanico Roger Moore solía decir que al ser cuestionado sobre su participación en las cintas de James Bond, una pregunta bastante frecuente era “¿no le abochorna participar en un proyecto tan poco serio?” a lo que el actor respondia con su caracteristico sentido del humor “Bueno, esa es su opinión y esta muy bien, pero personalmente, yo encuentro un proyecto de 18 millones de dolares como algo bastante serio…”. Una respuesta que bien puede encajar con el tema de la presente nota, y es que vale la pena preguntarse ¿es digno de tomar en cuenta un proyecto como Avatar, que tuvo un costo total entre planeación, ejecución y promoción, de algo asi como 500 millones de dolares? Despues de su arrollador triunfo en 1997 con el film Titanic, y tras un “parentesis” de 13 años (durante el cual, ademas de seguramente disfrutar de las regalias que le dió su ultima pelicula comercial, tambien se dió tiempo de realizar 3 documentales en IMAX y algunos capitulos de series para televisión en las que funge como productor) el cineasta canadiense James Cameron regresa a las pantallas comerciales con un proyecto largamente acariciado, una nueva aportación al genero Sci-Fi, genero en el que parece encontrarse mas a gusto y en el que seguramente ha brindado mejores resultados, tomando en cuenta los obtenidos en films como The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) y una coherente segunda entrega en Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), especialmente este ultimo que, a juicio de muchos, marcó una pauta en cuanto al desarrollo de los efectos especiales. Cabe señalar que durante este tiempo, fundó su propia compañia de producción, Lightstorm Entertainment, asi como su propia empresa dedicada al ramo de los efectos visuales, la Digital Domain, con la cual se ubicó por algun tiempo, como la más seria competencia de la Industrial Light and Magic de George Lucas en lo referente a la innovación en las herramientas digitales, si bien, hay que señarlo, la visión que Cameron suele manejar en las peliculas dirigidas por el, resulta ser un par de grados menos chabacana en comparación al universo del creador de Star Wars.

Avatar aparece como resultado de una larga planeación, que, segun el cineasta, no pudo ver la luz antes debido a la carencia de los recursos tecnicos y la sofisticación requerida para poder ser llevada a cabo, asi, mientras el cineasta dejaba de lado proyectos tales como True Lies 2, The planet of the apes y Spiderman, Cameron y su equipo comenzaron a desarrollar ideas y sofisticados softwares para dar vida a la que puede considerarse su equivalente personal de Star Wars, labor que el cineasta prometió durante todos estos años, daria como resultado un nuevo “antes y despues” en el ramo de los efectos especiales y la magia digital.
¿Sonaba bien, no?

Tras la larga espera, el nuevo film de Cameron fue estrenado en casi todos los paises del mundo, y, ademas, con un inusitado record de taquilla, algo que supone un exito historico (al momento de escribir esto, los ingresos de la cinta son de poco menos de 3000 millones de dolares, lo que la han ubicado como la cinta mas taquillera de la historia, relegando a aquel otro madrazo taquillero llamado Titanic al segundo sitio, esto es, dos demoledores exitos al hilo para un mismo director, sin duda, el sueño humedo de cualquier cineasta…) y la confirmación de Cameron como un habilisimo empresario que sabe vender bien, demasiado bien quiza, sus productos, lo cual no es poca cosa y seguramente, motivo de envidia hasta para el mismisimo Steven Spielberg.

Ahora bien, como todo en este mundo tiene sus pros y sus contras, es inevitable señalar tambien las reacciones que ha generado esta pelicula en las audiencias alrededor del orbe, y es que, a primera vista, es un film que parece contar con la misma cantidad tanto de admiradores como de detractores; para los primeros, representa la promesa cumplida por parte de Cameron de entregar algo portentoso y una muestra de lo que, opinan, sera el rumbo del cine de la “nueva era”, mientras que para los segundos, los espectadores serios y mamones que nunca faltan, se trata sencillamente de una idiotez planificada para atraer al mayor numero de pendejos posibles a verla, lo cual amerita analizar esta cinta desde ambos angulos.

Empecemos señalando lo pinche: Cameron paso años prometiendo ofrecer a las audiencias un espectaculo sin precedentes y una historia novedosa; no obstante, y en esto estoy de acuerdo con quienes la hacen mierda en sus comentarios, esta cinta no se distingue precisamente por su originalidad: si George Lucas tomo “prestados” para su saga intergalactica elementos facilmente reconocibles de otras peliculas ( La base de la historia de La fortaleza escondida de Kurosawa, los creditos iniciales de viejos seriales como Flash Gordon, e incluso, algunos personajes casi identicos en sus caracteristicas a los del Mago de Oz, combinados estos elementos con algo de filosofia samurai) en este caso, Cameron tambien se roba lo que puede: se piratea sin mayor miramiento a Frank Herbert en algunas situaciones planteadas en Dune (David Lynch, 1983), a saber: la profecia de la llegada del Mesias proveniente de otro planeta para salvar al mundo y las hordas de guerreros que esperan la llegada de este; el mensaje ecologista; el elemento mineral causante de la discordia y la posterior guerra que se desata por protegerlo; las creaturas salvajes que poblan dicho planeta y cuya participaciòn en la batalla final sera decisiva, y, por supuesto, la historia de amor entre el supuesto elegido de los dioses y una de las nativas del planeta, quien, a su vez, es una fiera amazona, etc. Tambien se ha comparado acertadamente a este film con Dances with wolfes de Kevin Costner, y, ciertamente, bien podria pasar como una visión futurista de esta, con un personaje que primero llega en plan de conquistador, y quien, al rato, se convence que trabaja para el bando equivocado, reniega de su raza y lucha de la mano con aquellos a quien trato de someter al principio, despues de hacer suyos sus usos y costumbres, combinando todos estos elementos con algo de filosofia prehispanica (la comunion indisoluble tanto fisica y espiritual del ser humano con la naturaleza y su entorno (esto es, con Dios) y esto es algo en lo que yo me atreveria a lanzar una hipotesis: es dificil de saber si Cameron la vió, pero, mas aún que la cinta de Costner,gran cantidad de las situaciones planteadas me recordaron muchisimo el argumento de Cabeza de Vaca (Nicolas Echevarria,1990), pero eso sera tema para otra ocasión. Por ahora, lo anteriormente expuesto permite afirmar que Cameron, asi como Lucas, tiene mas conocimiento del cine que de la vida, y esta historia versa mucho mas en copiar elementos de historias ajenas que en presentar un argumento original o innovador. En cuanto al rubro de los efectos especiales, no comparto la opinion de aquellos quienes opinan que esta cinta va a marcar la pauta de lo que sera la cinematografia en un futuro inmediato, ni pienso tampoco que las tecnicas empleadas en esta cinta sean precisamente innovadoras (eso habrá que juzgarlo según lo presentado en las caracteristicas especiales incluidas en el Bluray) pero lo cierto es que la tecnica de captura de movimiento para animación digital es una practica bastante comun desde hace casi 20 años (que en esta cinta este mucho mas desarrollada, es otra cosa) y de la tercera dimensión, querer mencionarla como algo novedoso…mejor ni hablar. Ademas, viendolo desde un punto de vista financiero-social, no deja de parecer insultante, aun para los estandares hollywoodenses, y en estos tiempos de crisis internacionales, la descomunal cantidad de dinero invertida en esto: 500 millones de dolares resulta ser una cifra francamente obscena para ser gastada en una sola pelicula, lo que hace del canadiense el director mas caro de la historia (cosa que no es precisamente un elogio).

Hecho el analisis negativo, veamos ahora el asunto desde el otro punto de vista, y es que, sin duda alguna, las maravillas que pueden lograrse con una cantidad tan elevada de dinero son lo primero que saltan a la vista: esta cinta de Cameron resulta ser un espectaculo audiovisual deslumbrante; los efectos conseguidos por computadora casi rayan en la perfección; los movimientos de las creaturas, la textura de su piel, el detalle extraordinario en recrear arboles, plantas, rocas, tallos, etc, hacen dificil de creer que la mayor parte de todo esto sea animación por computadora, ademas de la exuberancia visual que permea la casi totalidad del film, más el hecho de que los logros de Cameron en esta pelicula se hallan a años luz (diez, para ser exactos) de lo conseguido por Lucas en las precuelas de su exitosa franquicia, en cuanto al realismo digital y la complejidad de la historia se refiere, y esto es algo en lo que cabe hacer incapie: si bien el argumento puede resultar totalmente predecible, resulta innegable la habilidad de Cameron para contar las mismas historias una y otra vez sin hacer que decaiga el interes del espectador en ningun momento, lo que nos habla de un director con una extraordinaria capacidad para el timing cinematografico como pocos, ya que, a pesar de ser una cinta de casi tres horas de duración, salvo por las molestias que pudieran ocasionar las gafas para 3D, es una pelicula que apenas se siente, con ritmo perfecto y la briosa mano caracteristica del director para sacar adelante complejas y vertiginosas secuencias de acción, ademas del buen desempeño del reparto, por muy breve que este pudiese parecer en una primera instancia. Otra cosa que se le agradece al director en esta pelicula, es el hecho de no concentrarse en el lado cursi de la historia, como en su anterior Titanic, esto es, no hacer demasiada mención de la historia de amor, y concentrarse en aspectos mas interesantes, como la psique de los personajes humanos, y una poco velada (aunque bastante superficial, desde luego) critica al militarismo/autoritarismo del ejercito estadunidense asi como a la ambición de las Majors y las funestas decisiones que toman estas en aras de su propio interes, critica que se hace patente en casi la totalidad de la cinta, y, ademas, claro esta, el acontecimiento que representa ver esta cinta en un formato como el IMAX 3D (me refiero, por supuesto, al formato presentado en gloriosos 70 mm y no a las fraudulentas exhibiciones en IMAX Digital), hoy por hoy, y me vale madres lo que opinen muchos relamidos por estos lares, quizas el ultimo bastión, ante el embate de los adelantos tecnologicos aplicables a un home theater, de lo que representa vivir la espectacularidad de una experiencia cinematografica.

Ahora bien, seguramente, despues de leer lo dicho alla arriba, no faltaran quienes opinen “bueno, este pendejo debe pensar que una buena pelicula es una sucesión de imagenes chidas o bonitas…”; ò “Que tanto ruido le hacen a esta pendejada?”. Por supuesto que la primera respuesta para estos cabrones sería una mentada de madre de parte de un servidor, sin embargo, a pesar de ser un asunto tan intrascendente, uno no puede evitar tomar algun tipo de posicionamiento ante la opinión tanto de entusiastas como detractores. ya que, quierase o no, esta cinta constituyó (sorprendentemente) uno de esos raros casos en los que un mero e inofensivo producto comercial invita al debate (por mas pendejo que resulte ser en realidad el tema a debatir), e incluso, a la (infundada) controversia, se encuentre uno desde cualquiera de ambos extremos: por ejemplo, las autoridades del Vaticano ( quienes aparte de pasarse la vida rascandose los huevos o encubriendo a sacerdotes violadores de menores de edad, no han de tener otra cosa mejor que hacer ) han declarado su molestia con la pelicula, pues alegan que el mensaje de esta sobrepone a la naturaleza por encima de Dios; los distribuidores cinematograficos chinos casi boicotearon su estreno por esos lares, temerosos de la cinta opacase (cosa que al final terminó haciendo) el exito de la que se supone era su carta fuerte para ese año, una biografia de Confucio estelarizada por Chow Yun Fat, etc., y claro, como cualquier usuario de esta comunidad virtual podra advertir, esta cinta ha sido de las mas comentadas, sino la que más, tanto en los foros como en los blogs de criticas (chequen si no lo creen) de MUBI y You Tube, lo que nos habla del chingamadral de gente que ha asistido a ver esta cinta, y es precisamente en este punto que me gustaria poner las preguntas en la mesa, o mas bien, invitar a todos quienes chingados se esten tomando la molestia de leer esto, a hacer un pequeño examen de conciencia. Yo se que aqui todos “somos” unos Georges Sadouls, o, de perdida, unos Tomas Perez Turrents en potencia (esto es: cinefilos exquisitos que no ven chingaderas) y en su derecho estan, cabrones; no obstante, ¿para que hacerle al pendejo? ya que habemos (y coste que incluyo a todo pinche mundo) un chinguero que si las vemos, y no nada mas eso, sino que las disfrutamos, y sin embargo, al venir aqui, quiza por el “que diran” no reconocemos enfrente de la demas bola de weyes (que tambien son unos hipocritas bien hechos) que nos gusta una cosa tan 100% comercial como esta, y preferimos aventar el choro declarando que para una tardecita de domingo, no existe nada que no sea Godard, Bergman o Tarkovsky. Seriá interesante preguntarles a todos estos cinefilos de closet ¿ Que chingados esperaban ver ? ¿ pensaron que esta iba a ser una nueva Solaris, una Stalker ó una 2001 ? ¿ Nunca habian visto una pelicula dirigida por James Cameron ? si a esto ultimo se me respondiera con un “no” me pareceria algo encabronadamente dificil de creer, salvo que el interrogado se tratase de un monje zen recien descolgado del Tibet, o bien, del mismisimo mandatario de Bolivia Evo Morales ( este otro aborto de Fidel Castro ha declarado recientemente que Avatar es la tercer pelicula que ha visto en toda su pinche vida, y la primera de procedencia estadounidense; asimismo, ha dicho tambien que esta cinta le parece “un repudio total al capitalismo” (sic), lo cual no deja muy en claro si el film le gustó o no) y es que, salvo una mejor opinión, cuando tu te metes a ver una pelicula de un Cameron, un Tarantino, un Spielberg o un Robert Rodriguez, sabes de antemano en que vas a pasar el tiempo, o me equivoco? ¿esperaban un film de tesis, acaso? alli les va otra mejor: supongamos que estan metidos en el pinche cine, ya sea en compañia de la novia o de los amigos, y resulta que en una sala estan pasando una retrospectiva dedicada, digamos, a un Glauber Rocha o un Theo Angelopolus, sin embargo, en la gigantesca sala IMAX de al lado, van a dar la premiere de una cinta como Avatar o una Kill Bill 3…francamente, ¿preferirian meterse a ver Antonio das mortes ó La mirada de Ulises en la sala pequeña, o se meterian a la IMAX? ¿La neta, no se les antojaria ver Avatar en la comodidad de su casa, y en su propia pantalla de alta definición? ¿cuantos weyes conocen que tengan un DVD de Carl Th. Dreyer, y cuantos que tengan el de Terminator 2?

Posiblemente, estimados lectores que reniegan de esta pelicula despues de haberla visto, si lo hacen por quedar bien delante de todos, mejor olvidense, ya que un verdadero cinefilo “exigente”, aquel que se siente un colaborador de “Cahiers du Cinema”, es alguien quien nunca podria dar una opinion ni negativa ni positiva de una pelicula como esta, ya que jamas le pasaria ni tantito por la mente meterse a una sala de cine a perder el tiempo viendo una “basura” como este film.

Pero hay veces que ni esos se salvan de " cagarla ". Uno de los mas destacados colaboradores de esa revista y posteriormente legendario director de cine, Alain Resnais, llego a declararse admirador de la obra de James Cameron, y especialmente de su Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a la que considera como “la mas elocuente y lograda metafora espacio-tiempo que he visto en una pelicula” (sic), ¿que les parece?

Hora de las conclusiones: resulta valido el elogiar una cinta como Avatar, asi como resulta comprensible echar pestes de ella. Ciertamente, no es lo que el grueso de los mamones aqui en MUBI consideran una gran pelicula, y ponerle un rating de 5 estrellas puede parecer algo exagerado, pero tambien me parece una exageración calificarla como una inmundicia, ya que es unos de esos films que a un servidor le garantizan 3 horas seguras de esparcimiento, (a fin de cuentas, la meta final de ir a ver una pelicula), ademas de que su director ha declarado que, ciertamente, su intención no era hacer una pelicula para concursar en Cannes, y vamos, si no existieran peliculas como esta y todo el cine fuera Bresson, Fellini, Antonioni y demas, se imaginan que pinche hueva seria ir al cine? es por esto que estamparle sus 5 estrellas (algo que, por cierto, es de risa loca como se la han pasado decenas de weyes aqui en MUBI chingandome por haberlo hecho) me parece algo adecuado.

Nos guste o no, las cifras hablan. La pelicula siguió rompiendo madres en taquilla durante su reestreno en una versión extendida (aunque, siendo francos, a esas alturas del partido, uno hubiese preferido ver en pantalla la parodia porno de Avatar, estrenada tambien en 3D) haciendo lo mismo con su lanzamiento en video; durante la éxitosa gira de promoción del film, Cameron no desaprovechó la oportunidad, de pasada, de pintarse como un “defensor” de las comunidades indigenas del Amazonas al equpararlos con los Naa´vi de su pelicula; seguiremos teniendo hombrecitos azules para rato (estan en desarrollo dos secuelas con miras a estrenarse respectivamente en 2014 y 2015) y aunque, contra todo pronostico,el film no gano el oscar a mejor pelicula, no se puede dejar de reconocer la (poco trascendente, desde luego) impotancia de Avatar por haber logrado imponer un nuevo estandar no precisamente en lo que a los efectos especiales se refiere, (pienso yo) pero definitivamente si en cuanto a los modos de exhibición, ya que, despues de su estreno, todas las majors percibieron el potencial economico de la puesta de moda por el director canadiense tercera dimensión, por lo que, desde entonces, son pocas las producciones Hollywoodenses que no son exhibidas en el dichoso formato, un motivo para celebrar, lamentar o saludablemente ignorar, segun el caso.

AVATAR
Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, 2009
D James Cameron
EXEC Laeta Kalogridis, Colin Wilson
P James Cameron, Jon Landau
G James Cameron
F Mauro Fiore
CAST Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi, CCH Pounder
ED James Cameron, John Refoua, Stephen E. Rivkin
MUSIC James Horner

James Francis Cameron. Dialah penyebab semua chaos ini. Lima belas tahun yang lalu, sutradara film Titanic itu mengeluh karena imajinasi “liarnya” belum bisa dituangkan ke dalam layar lebar disebabkan keterbatasan teknologi sinematografi. Namun seiring berkembangnya digitalisasi, 3D, CGI, apa pun menjadi mungkin. Film terbarunya, Avatar (2009), adalah sebuah terobosan, sesuatu yang tidak mungkin ditonton tanpa teriakan “wow!” atau “edan!”. Saya pikir, mungkin inilah yang dirasakan oleh orang-orang pada tahun 1933 saat menonton film King Kong untuk pertama kalinya.

Kali ini, penonton dibawa ke planet Pandora pada gugusan galaksi baru yang akhirnya ditemukan oleh manusia pada tahun 2154. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), seorang mantan marinir yang lumpuh, ditugasi untuk menjajaki kemungkinan bernegosiasi dengan kaum Na’vi, makhluk pribumi, agar mereka segera meninggalkan pohon besar yang selama ini menjadi “sarang” mereka. Pohon keramat itu ternyata menyimpan sumber mineral langka unobtanium, yang dapat digunakan untuk mengatasi krisis energi di planet Bumi.

Namun, karena udara di planet Pandora tidak cocok bagi manusia, para ilmuwan mengembangkan program Avatar, yaitu membuat replika makhluk Na’vi. Dengan rekayasa DNA dihasilkan kloning makhluk setinggi tiga meter, berekor, dan berwarna biru pucat itu. Dengan menggunakan kekuatan pikiran, makhluk kloning itu dipakai untuk berinteraksi dengan kaum Na’vi asli. Jake pun mulai mengeksplorasi kehidupan yang eksotis di planet tersebut.

Tetapi, perlahan-lahan Jake mulai menaruh respek terhadap cara hidup kaum Na’vi. Ia juga jatuh hati kepada Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), anak sang kepala suku. Seperti yang diduga, Jake akhirnya menjadi bagian dari mereka untuk menentang invasi makhluk bumi, eh, manusia. Tanpa mengurangi sedikitpun level kecanggihan visualisasinya, penonton mulai terseret ke dalam emosi karakter-karakter yang diciptakan Cameron.

Avatar menawarkan pengalaman baru dalam menonton film. Tidak ada adaptasi atau daur ulang di dalam film ini. Semuanya murni inovasi dan imajinasi. Film ini merombak teori bahwa film blockbuster hanya berasal dari adopsi novel best-seller (Harry Potter, Twilight), komik (Batman, Spiderman), mainan (Transformers) dan lain sebagainya. Mungkin kita telah berulangkali menonton film dengan plot yang serupa, tapi dengan kecanggihan teknik visualisasi dan kreativitas Cameron, semuanya tampak berbeda dalam Avatar.

Semangat anti-imperialisme mewarnai film ini, dengan menampilkan konflik klasik antara para penggiat lingkungan dengan pemerintah yang cenderung korup. Avatar merefleksi kerakusan sebagai sifat dasar manusia, yang suka merusak alam tanpa memedulikan kelangsungan ekosistem yang ada di dalamnya. Dari segi cerita, Avatar mungkin belum sedalam dan sekolosal Trilogi The Lord of the Rings, namun ia tetap layak dinobatkan sebagai film tahun ini.

Film ini akan semakin istimewa jika disaksikan di bioskop dengan kacamata khusus. Rasanya belum ada film yang “benar-benar diciptakan” untuk ditonton secara 3D sebaik Avatar. Durasi yang nyaris tiga jam tidak akan terasa, karena setiap menit dari film ini adalah petualangan dan penemuan baru. Cameron benar-benar edan!

I am eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see. (Dziga Vertov)

Realisme adalah salah satu mazhab besar nan berpengaruh dalam sejarah kesenian manusia, mulai dari seni teater, sastra, sampai pada film-pun tak pernah lepas dari pengaruh aliran realisme ini. Saya utarakan terlebih dahulu, saya bukanlah penganut realisme seperti halnya Dziga Vertov (Filmmaker legendaris Rusia yang petuahnya saya kutip diatas), saya hanya penggemar film yang care akan konsep keseimbangan dalam film itu sendiri (at least, I think I care). Oleh karena itu, tidak nyaman rasanya mendapati sebuah film yang seperti terlalu jauh melangkah dari prinsip-prinsip dasar sinema itu sendiri. Akhir-akhir ini kekhawatiran saya itu tak pernah surut sampai pada titik nol, karena film-film mainstream (kebanyakan produksi Hollywood) kelihatannya sudah meminimalisir utilisasi sinematis itu sendiri, hari ini para filmmaker justru lebih banyak dibantu oleh komputer yang notabene bisa melakukan apa saja. Kekhawatiran saya memuncak tatkala beberapa hari lalu menonton Avatar. Sebuah film yang cukup segar dalam hal visualisasi, James Cameron yang mengarahkan serta menulis sendiri film ini sadar betul bahwa inovasi visual pasti bisa menyita perhatian publik yang massif. Perhatikan saja sukses film-film serupa tahun 2009 macam Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen dan blockbuster spekulasi kiamat besutan si-spesialis disaster Rolland Emmerich: 2012.

Avatar bercerita tentang eksploitasi manusia disebuah planet untuk membawa pulang kandungan mineral berharga yang mereka sebut Unobtanium. Motivasi mereka murni bisnis karena harga unobtanium sangat mahal, konflik dimulai ketika manusia mengetahui bahwa kandungan unobtanium terbesar tertanam dibawah sebuah pohon raksasa diplanet ini. Masalahnya adalah pohon tersebut adalah pohon yang dikeramatkan oleh para Na’vi, penduduk asli setempat. Manusia yang pada saat itu punya kekuatan ekonomi dan militer yang mumpuni, mengirim beberapa manusia hasil percobaan untuk memasuki tubuh yang sama dengan tubuh biologis para Na’vi, tubuh ini bernama Avatar. Namun salah satu Avatar yang diutus kemudian jatuh cinta dengan seorang wanita Na’vi keluarga kepala suku (Entah sudah berapa juta film yang punya jalan cerita seperti ini).

Nuansa ketimpangan antara visualisasi dan narasi sudah terasa dimenit-menit awal, apalagi disuntikkan pula dialog-dialog yang sepertinya tidak seharusnya keluar dari karakter yang mengucapkannya. Dalam hati saya bergumam “Itu beneran James Cameron yang nulis?”. Suara hati yang lain menyahut “Iyalah, James Cameron”. Suara hati lain menyahut lagi “James Cameron-nya Titanic sama Terminator?, jangan-jangan ini another James Cameron?”. Tak ada jawaban. Visualisasi yang matang tampaknya menjadi pusat perhatian sang filmmaker sehingga mengabaikan aspek ceritanya. Ada dua pertanyaan yang tak terjawab oleh saya. Pertama, kalau manusia sudah punya alat militer yang sebegitu canggihnya,lantas untuk apa sang avatar dikirim untuk studi antropologi? Itu buang-buang waktu. Langsung serang saja planetnya, selesai. Kedua, diakhir film, Neytiri langsung tahu wujud manusia Jake Sully padahal sebelumnya mereka hanya berinteraksi dalam wujud Avatar dan Na’vi. Bagaimana?.

Banyak kawan saya para pencinta film berkomentar, ini adalah sejarah baru dalam dunia perfilman. Sejarah yang akan membawa sinema ke-era yang jauh lebih canggih!. Buat saya, mungkin masih terlalu berlebihan untuk menyebut itu. Saya malah curiga, Avatar akan membawa sinema kepada kematiannya, diera anak-anak kita nanti, bisa jadi akan sulit membedakan visualisasi-gambar film dan resolusi video-game. Dan avatar, sebenarnya lebih cocok kita klasifikasikan kedalam modifikasi video-game ketimbang sebagai sebuah revolusi sinematik.

Not good, not bad, not much of anything. Just a reminder that pure extravagance in copious magnitude will generally be responded to with more interest than actual quality. Just watched it today, and believe it or not I had little exposure to this film beforehand, whether it be story line, screen-shots, spoilers etc. I went into it nearly as fresh as you possibly could go into one of the most high-profile movies of all time. What new light can I shed onto Avatar? Nothing worth typing. The movie it is what it is.

I finally decided to do a review of the highest grossing film of all time. To set the record straight I do not like this film. I was incredibly excited for it, but when I discovered that it was only PG and was being marketed as a ‘family friendly’ movie, any hopes for the film having a strong plot disappeared. James Cameron already made a lot of amazing R films, so I was okay with him allowing his style to appeal to a broader audience. Sigourney Weaver was in it and that excited me as well, which made up for the lack of an R rating. The trailer finally appeared and I must have shit my pants with excitement, the special effects were superb. If Avatar was going to deliver on one thing it would be the special effects, which made up for any small errors the film may have. I went twice in Imax for the full experience, but then I saw the movie on a regular theater screen. I was disappointed. So here is a list of five things that Avatar did horribly wrong.

5. The characters are stock and unlikeable.Every character in this film is an old movie cliche, whether it was the evil war general or the fighter pilot with a conscious, the characters in the film felt bland and stock. They acted in the most predictable ways and after they’re introduced the audience already knows their point in the film. Even Sigourney Weaver is unlikeable, which isn’t how I assume Cameron wanted us to think of her, but she still acts like a prick and appears as being pointless within the film. She doesn’t do anything but bitch about the corporation and only sticks around as a main character so she can die as a way to make the audience get all emotional. Sam Worthington plays a total idiot and everything he does in the film pisses me off, mostly because no average person would act that way. The worst character in the movie is Neytiri, as she is only their to play the love interest. She is uninteresting and uncharacterized, she begins the movie talking with an accent that disappears five minutes later, and worst of all she falls in love with Jake for no apparent reason other than provide a love interest. These characters were incredibly bad and it only gets worse form here.

4. The dialog is lame and poorly written.James Cameron wrote some really bad-ass lines, but none of the can compare to “That is one big tree!” or “You are not in Kansas anymore!”. Everything the bad guy Quaritch said was so cliche, and the stupidity only begins there. Jake talks like an idiot throughout the entire film and is always acting like a smart-ass. I cringe ever time a character in this film speaks, especially Jake and the Na’vi. The lines are incredibly cliche and at one point the fighter pilot says, “I didn’t sign up for this shit.” How many times have we heard that one before? The answer is lots and I noticed a lot of lines from other films that clearly didn’t have any thought put into them. The dialog was bad and I didn’t like it at all.

3. Obvious left-wing propaganda. The entire film bashes the United States government and makes a direct relation to cleaner energy and oil. I understand that this makes the film relevant, but it just preached ‘green’ views and made large corporations look evil. I don’t think corporation are evil, as without them the entire world would live in poverty and I wouldn’t have an iPod or Xbox, nor a job. I understand the Iraq war references and the line “We will fight terror with terror!” always makes me laugh uncontrollably because of the stupidity of the scene. The Na’vi did not terrorize the humans, however in real life terrorists did kill thousands of people when they bombed the World Trade Center. I don’t appreciate these allusions to the Iraq war and respecting the environment because I’m constantly being bombarded by propaganda about the evils of the Bush administration and oil companies. This isn’t that bad and I’m sure in ten years I’ll actually enjoy this aspect, but for now I feel that its been overdone and brings down the film.

2. It copied the plot of other films.Dances with Wolves. Starship Troopers. Fern Gully. Pocahantas. Avatar resembles all of these films with similar plots. Its an old cliche that a white man befriends the indigenous population and sides with them, but this movie blatantly ripped these off. The movie’s evil military-esque corporation resembles the military of Starship Troopers with similar motivation to destroy the natives and the marines are being killed off by the planet’s hostile wildlife in both films. I watched Fern Gully after hearing about its resemblance to Avatar, which was actually one of my favorite films when I was young. I was shocked to see the films not only featuring similar plots, but actual shots were stolen directly from the movie and placed into Avatar. A certain scene shows the main character of Fern Gully trying to stop a massive bulldozer headed towards some trees; a scene which Avatar perfectly recreates. I’m fine with a movie using a classic plot as the basis for their story, but Avatar clearly just took scenes from these other films to fill space in the plot.

1. It didn’t look good on a regular screen.When watching this on a regular theater screen without 3D and without Imax, I couldn’t stand the visuals. The Na’vi look incredibly lifeless and grotesque, especially when many are displayed on the screen at once. It actually looked no better than a current generation video game. The lighting was the worse aspect of this, especially at scenes set during the night. It doesn’t look good and I won’t be buying this film on bluray, as it will look like shit. The visuals were what redeemed the movie for me, but without them it revealed how bad and lame this movie really is.

The good things about this movie were that the action was fun to watch and it was very rewarding to watch the soldiers get killed in a variety of horrible ways. The film could have had a strong ending if it had ended after the destruction of Home Tree, after which Jake says “I guess I just have to wake up.” Sam Worthington, despite his horrible role in this film, is actually a good action star and I look forward to seeing him in The Clash of the Titans remake. In Imax the movie looks stunning. I enjoyed watching the movie the first time, despite its predictability.
The one thing that saddens me the most about this movie is that it will forever change the way movies are made. This means that directors and producers are going to focus more on the visual effects than getting good performances out of the actors, which takes all of the skill out of acting. Visual effects allow for the manipulation of anything in the scenes, so filmmakers will no longer have to focus on getting the lighting or camerawork perfect, as they can now just change it in post production. This is not filmmaking, this is animation; which is not the direction I want film to take. Avatar is going to change everything, and its going to be up to independent filmmakers to save the art form with low budget miniatures and organic effects (like the makers of Moon). It will all go downhill from here.

Rating: 4/10

I’ve never been so entertained by so bad a film. Everything in the production of this film was brilliant, the editing, the pacing, the shoot ’em up action scenes, the CGI effects, the 3D effects. And yet everything that had anything to do with the actual heart of the movie was so laughably bad that I was able to simultaneously enjoy it as being one of the best and worst films of the last decade.

Stealing a script from a lesser Disney movie (Pocahontas) is a pretty bad start. And it’s downhill from there. Just about everything that can be bad about a script is bad here. Painfully predictable, politically irrelevant despite its best efforts, oh so flat characters, a confused take on militarism and violence (if it’s so bad, why make war look so playful and fun?), and just overall badness.

That said, I enjoyed myself tremendously while watching this film. From the opening line: (“When I was lying in the V.A. hospital with a big hole blown through the middle of my life,…” what?? who talks like that??) to the hackneyed ending it was one laugh after another. Every time the head marine came on you can’t help but laugh—he practically walked out of a Simpson’s episode: a parody of a parody of a military man. The war scenes were such good natured childish violence that one can’t help but giggle at the incongruity of it all.

My advice is to watch this movie for what it is an incredibly intricate and beautiful expression of a series of hopelessly stupid ideas. Once the dust settles and everyone realizes how unforgivably dumb Avatar is, it may well become the next Rocky Horror.

Never has bad been so much fun.

Publicó esta crítica antes de que lleguen los Oscar, donde la película de James Cameron, Avatar, es considerada una de las favoritas para ganar el principal galardón de la noche: Mejor Película.

Es innegable que Avatar, merece un Oscar, pero este no debe de ser Mejor Película ni el de director. La mayor contribución de Avatar (y de James Cameron en consecuencia) es tecnológica, ya que Cameron tardó más de una década en desarrollar la cámara con la que filmó Avatar.

La cinta como producto cinematográfico cojea en todos los frentes, el guión si bien no es un plagio directo, es posible rastrear retacería de miles de otros filmes (desde Pocahontas hasta Gorilas en la Niebla, pasando por Julio Cortázar e Isaac Asimov en la literatura). De esta forma la trama de la película no ofrece nada nuevo, un chico con problemas personales (en este caso es paralitico) conoce a una chica con problemas aun mayores (cualquier persona que gaste su tiempo enseñando los dientes a su pareja debe tener problemas psicológicos), por lo tanto desde los primeros quince minutos el espectador es capaz de deducir que viene a continuación.

Otro punto flaco, es la construcción de personajes, todos los personajes son blancos o son negros, ninguno maneja matices (especialmente los protagonistas Sam Worthington y Zoe Saldaña). De esta forma continuamos con los lugares comunes, la pareja debe enfrentar al general que es peor que los triglicéridos, al novio despechado y de paso la incomprensión del mundo que no entiende su amor (misteriosamente suena a Titanic, ¿no?)

Ni hablar del débil comentario o metáfora política que contiene el filme, si de hablar de la guerra en Irak y Afganistán se trata, mejor tratar la psique de los soldados que regresan trastornados de una guerra sin sentido (más allá del económico), mejor ver In the Valley of Elah con Tommy Lee Jones o en su caso The Hurt Locker de Kathryn Bigelow, dos claros ejemplos de lo que espera a los americanos con sus veteranos de esta guerra.

Todos estos puntos malos deben ser atribuidos en su totalidad a James Cameron, quien al concentrarse demasiado en la parte tecnológica de la cinta, irremediablemente, descuido los demás aspectos, olvidando que las grandes películas se construyen como un conjunto de todas las partes.

Algunos acertadamente dirán que soy un resentido social (no lo niego), porque si Avatar ha logrado recaudar $2, 551, 489, 342 dólares en taquilla (cifras según www.imdb.com) algo bueno debe de tener, en efecto no se equivocan, Avatar resulta divertida para la mayoría de las personas (no es su culpa, no es que no gusten del cine, no saben apreciarlo), sobre todo en su primera media hora, pero en cuanto el espectador adivina a trama, la magia desaparece.

El hecho de que recaude tanto dinero en taquilla, es el mayor indicador de la muerte del cine como lo conocemos (o al menos como el autor de esta crítica lo disfruta), la imposición de la tecnología sobre los demás elementos cinematográficos (sueño húmedo de la mayoría de los productores hollywoodenses). Y en tiempos de crisis no duden que cada vez más personas apostarán por la formula Avatar(que en realidad no es nueva, aunque con las salas 3-D vive un nuevo aire).

Mucha forma, poco fondo.

Avatar has to some extent a message of anti-imperialism but in the end the message isn’t as wholly progressive as it seems.

Let me start by saying although I do fervently hate Hollywood and all of its disciples and incarnations there are some exceptions. Within them are two of Cameron’s films. James Cameron is maybe the standard setter of Hollywood action blockbusters for a whole generation and has made some notable films which although are not art but are nonetheless entertaining; Aliens and The Terminator.

His latest film Avatar is neither art or entertainment. It is standard Hollywood trash. Trite and cliche dialogue, summed up by such stock lines as “I haven’t got all damned night” and “not while I’m still alive”, one dimensional cardboard characters and a predictable storyline. So standard fare for action films produced by directors like Cameron today.

However Avatar stands apart from other Hollywood tripe, because it attempts to act as some sort of social critique. Which to some extent is ok. It recognises imperialism and portrays the colonial US army as the bad guys and the Na’vi people as the good guys, which is applaudable I suppose. But from a Socialist perspective this films has failed in its commentary because we are constantly told from a human perspective, I feel Cameron’s message is not one of self-determination but merely of determination on the colonial powers’ terms.

Segundo o Houaiss, o primeiro significado para a palavra revolução é “ato ou efeito de revolucionar(-se), de realizar ou sofrer uma mudança sensível”. Nesse sentido, o novo filme de James Cameron, o primeiro longa de ficção que o diretor lança depois de Titanic (1997), é um exemplo perfeito para esse substantivo. Avatar, inegavelmente, é um marco não apenas na ficção-científica, mas na utilização da tecnologia no cinema. Daqui a alguns anos, o filme vai ser considerado um divisor de águas, algo como uma ovelha Dolly para a clonagem.

O longa de Cameron demorou quase uma década e meia para ser feito simplesmente porque não havia tecnologia disponível para materializar o que o cineasta havia imaginado. A concepção visual de Avatar tem um tanto de megalomaníaca, mas é extremamente fiel ao “tamanho” do filme. Ou mais exatamente ao tamanho do pacote que Cameron encomendou: além de um planeta selvagem e uma civilização completamente nova, o homem inventou uma simbiose místico-orgânica entre os habitantes deste novo mundo e o lugar onde vivem que é o maior diferencial do filme. Não dá para chamar Avatar por um adjetivo menor do que gigantesco.

A ousadia do diretor é sempre bem-vinda. Desde o guilty pleasure Piranhas 2 – As Assassinas Voadoras, todos os longas do diretor são deliciosos, incluindo os dois primeiros Exterminador do Futuro, Aliens e True Lies. Pouquíssimos diretores conseguem trabalhar no mesmo plano de Cameron e realizar filmes inteligentes e extremamente pop. Avatar tem a mesma sofisticação visual do restante da filmografia do diretor. No modo “giga” desta vez.

Cameron nos entrega um planeta elaboradíssimo visualmente, que mistura elementos de florestas tropicais com pura imaginação, inventa uma nova linguagem de animação que os personagens criados por computador, cria batalhas épicas, explorando ao máximo seus cenários e seus personagens revolucionários e faz mais uma aventura que nos joga num carrossel em alta velocidade, nos faz esquecer da vida e torcer pelos mocinhos no embate final. Avatar, do alto de toda sua tecnologia, nos remete ao primórdios do cinema de aventura, onde ver seu favorito ganhar era a maior das recompensas.

Minha única questão é: a premissa do filme precisava mesmo ser tão simples, ou melhor, tão ingênua? Porque, por mais que haja elaboração nos conceitos relacionados aos Na’vi e a Pandora, Avatar é um filme de mensagem como há muito tempo não se via. James Cameron nos convida a preservar o meio-ambiente, respeitar as diferenças étnicas e religiosas e as tradições, lutar pelos mais fracos. O mesmo homem que inventou esse arsenal todo de novidades também nos ensina que os bons são bons e os maus são maus, que existe um certo e um errado, que se a gente continuar agindo contra a Mãe Natureza, ela vai se voltar contra nós.

São premissas cruas demais que quase entram em conflito com a embalagem que o diretor deu ao filme. Cameron, no entanto, está protagido pelo Houaiss. Um dos significados secundários para a palavra revolução no dicionário é “movimento circular ou elíptico no qual um móvel volta à sua posição inicial”. Avatar faz exatamente isso. Sua tecnologia é apenas suporte. Ela realmente deve mudar nossa relação com a imagem e com o cinema. Mas no fundo, no fundo, este filme é apenas uma grande aventura. Daquelas de antigamente.

“The ultimate 3D experience,” “Wholly original,” and its own self-declaration: “Movies will never be the same.” More accurately, it blatantly recalls the model white guilt story i.e. Dances with Wolves: white man enters unknown culture with intent to destroy, ends up getting a lady and understanding, assimilating upon realization of the horrible, unfair things his own race did to them. Forget for a moment that the story is generic- its still stretched thin over a 162 minute run time. Clunky lines that bad action movies are known for multiply throughout the film, delivered by actors just going through the motions. Obvious points should be given for the original wildlife design, inventing of a nonexistent world complete with its own creatures, beasts, and development. As for watching in 3D, its engaging films in a new way, and made Avatar more exciting. In this film it was applied predictably but was still worth it of course. There’s this idea that a movie can be great if it sacrifices core aspects like chemistry and storytelling if it especially shines and dazzles special fx. But there’s no sense of actual character in the characters, so I merely didn’t care what happened to any of them. At least we have a “stepping stone” into the future of 3D film.

Analogous with the capitalistic invasions of our own world, Avatar speaks a powerful truth. Even if it there was no 3D/IMAX experience, it would still stand above mediocre science fiction fare. Since it is so visually rampant and engrossing, the weak dialogue, thin characters, and overlong plot are practically inconsequential. It’s just pure adventure; pertinent while light, dramatic while campy. James Cameron has manifested the spell-binding world of Pandora with revolutionary technology that ensures the consumption of its audience. The visual sensations of that place, with the purity of its inhabitants and their traditon, is spell-binding and rich. The atmosphere of the jungle and the concept of physical “bonding” between lifeforms is inherently sexual, but with the innocence of nature. And most commendable, on a science fiction level, the film explores the concept of spirituality with organic science. All the artists involved have created a vibrant masterpiece of form and passion. It’s astouding in totality.

In 1903 audiences were thrilled and stunned (and scared shitless) by the film The Great Train Robbery.The reason for this is because the film contained the infamous shot of the train chugging towards the camera, and the audience, never seeing anything like this before, screamed and thought that the train was literally going to come out of the screen and hit them. This was considered a very important time in cinema, and that film had changed cinema forever.

Then, in 2009, Avatar came out. After seeing it in IMAX 3D I felt the same kind of exhilaration that the audience must have felt over 100 years ago. I saw history happen that night, and everything that people are saying is true: movies will never be the same way ever again.

Avatar is, first and foremost, an action film. Action fans should not be put off, however, since it’s James Cameron who has created this unique vision. The same man who brought us The Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss has stunned audiences once again. I recommend going into the film blind, like I did. So, in that case, stop reading this now.

The CG is absolutely fantastic. When he film first started it took my eyes a little bit to fully adjust to this immersive experience. The scenes looked like I was staring at one of those holographic baseball cards. After a while though, it seemed like I was actually staring at real people moving around in a box mounted in front of me, even though they were about 10x my height. Everything looked absolutely gorgeous. However, I had a problem with the Na’vi. It took me a long while to convince myself to see these characters as real. When I first started watching it the came off cartoonie and fake, but this is most likely due to the fact that I knew that they didn’t actually exist in this plane of existence. I had to convince myself to let go and stop seeing them as CG. After a while, I did, and I swear, there are moments where I forget that they were CG because they looked so incredibly real. The planet of Pandora looks gorgeous. There is a specific shot that had me utterly amazed me in how real it looked. When the marines open fire on the massive tree that the Na’vi live in, there is one shot where we see a line of helicopters in the foreground, and the massive tree trunk begins to snap under the toppling pressure. Seeing the wood splinter looked SO REAL. I was actually convinced that what I was seeing was actually real. The film requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief, but if you can manage to do this, then you’re in for one hell of a ride.

The story is really fun and enjoyable. Sure, Cameron isn’t the best at scriptwriting, and it shows in some of his dialogue, but I can overlook this for the story itself. It’s amazing how surprising allegorical this film actually is: it’s all about imperialism and connecting with oneself/surroundings. James Cameron had this to say about the film’s theme, “I have an absolute reverence for men who have a sense of duty, courage, but I’m also a child of the ‘60s. There’s a part of me who wants to put a daisy in the end of the gun barrel. I believe in peace through superior firepower, but on the other hand I abhor the abuse of power and creeping imperialism disguised as patriotism. Some of these things you can’t raise without being called unpatriotic, but I think it’s very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled, or it becomes Rome.”

The film is rather existentialist in nature, and I love the idea of “trusting your body.” The Na’vi is an ideal version of humanity, where we are strong and agile, and greed seems to not exist. We live off our land and give back to it when we can. This is what I really enjoyed about Avatar. The characters are all enjoyable. Cameron is known for creating really strong female characters; if only he could write better dialogue for them. We all remember Sarah Connor, but do we actually remember anything she actually said? No, we don’t. Instead we remember her for her actions, and the same goes for the female characters here. The female pilot was one of my favorite characters; not because of anything she actually said, but because of what she did. I almost shed a tear when she went down. Sam Worthington does a good job playing a blunt marine, and Sigourney Weaver is, well, a lovable bitch. Stephen Lang plays the generic badass general, but Cameron breaks the one cliche that all evil hardened marine veterans seem to have in movies. Instead of having one scar go over his face, he has three.

The action is really first rate and intense, and the use of documentary like techniques (like zooming in on a horde of Na’vi riding their horse-like creatures who happen to make the same sound as a velociraptor coughing in Jurassic Park) really adds to the sheer intensity. We see people impaled by arrows that are half their size, people attacked by huge soaring dragons and helicopter propellers slicing up people. We even get mech suits (something that the film adaptation of Starship Troopers lacked)! The action is literally breath taking.

Avatar isn’t the greatest movie ever made, but it certainly is an experience, one that every person, cinephile or not, should see. You have NEVER seen a film like Avatar before. The ending of the film fits right in, some people see it as a little fast and blunt, but I feel it fits perfectly. Just like Sam Worthington’s character; fast, blunt and to the point.

Worthington portrays a nice character arch as his human paraplegic body loses the definition of a fit marine and his Na’vi body becomes a warrior. Saldana is sweet and protectively vicious when need be. Weaver is tough as a diplomatic scientist standing up to Ribisi the corporate man and Lang the military man, but is soft and gentle in her Avatar body. Her Avatar looks a bit more plastic than most of the others for some reason. My pick for the tough as nails female character goes to Michelle Rodriquez though. Lang is scary and grizzled. I can see the connections to movies like Dances with Wolves. I like that type of story where an outsider becomes immersed in another culture. I really appreciated the Native American, one with nature, interconnected web of existence, style of spirituality that the Na’vi have.

The movie is visually a spectacle!! The spectacular luminous, glow in the dark vegetation, and tree top or cliff edge world of Pandora is thrilling. It is the type of big epic movie for which 3D technology was invented. I like that this is not only a science fiction movie or a fantasy movie. I love the mixture of mythical fantasy elements and the high tech robotic suits and digital virtual touch screens.

Where to start? This was the question I asked myself when I just see the movie James Cameron’s AVATAR. The film begins with a slow pace and is engaging in emotion until the climax, when I felt a “chill down my spine.” The argument from history is nothing magnificent, at least to consider interesting from my point of view. Cameron likes to take great romantic novels to capture the attention of the viewer, already had shown in Titanic. In this case, the love comes between a man and a Na’Vi. One thing I notice in the films of James Cameron man knows tell stories that are able to excite the most impenetrable heart. Cameron also is distinguished by perfectionism that requires and demonstrates in all of his works, however it is not considered a perfectionist. In the words of Cameron:

“People call me a perfectionist, but I’m not. I’m a rightist. I do something until it’s right, and then I move on to the next thing. "

JAMES CAMERON

Avatar is a fantastic and utopian world created in the mind of James Cameron. In my opinion the quality of the film is distinguished only for two reasons. The first is the technique that was produced at the level of special effects in which Cameron and his team used a virtual camera system that allows for the location with the actors see in real time their performances already embedded in the scenarios Computer-generated imagery ( CGI), setting the scenes, the actors and camera in relation to their objectives. The second is the visual beauty that he could paint pictures of animated characters that look outs of animals and humans who, after centuries of evolution will inhabit the planet earth.

This was an exceedingly disappointing film experience, that does not live up to the marketing strategy and buzz leading up to it. The film has been marketed as an “immersive” new breakthrough in filmmaking and has even been called the future of cinema by some. If this is the future of cinema, count me out. Yes, the motion capture and all the CG in the film is absurdly detailed and as far as detail goes, the best I’ve seen to date. In fact, the detail is often so ridiculously in-depth that it appears far more superficial than it should. The issue, however, is not the detail within the computer-generated characters and their surroundings, it’s the motion of the characters themselves. No matter how many skin pores or sweat beads have been added to the Na’Vi characters, the motion is really what sells them as realistic, and frankly they still move far too fluidly and weightlessly to be convincing. The way they glide in midair makes them appear as if they are lighter than balloons. The technology is definitely the best part of the film, and seeing as I’m not very impressed with that, I have more to say. The writing in this film is horrid. The storyline is an old, sappy formula that has been beaten to death by endless films. Yet, Cameron felt the need to make another over-expensive version of it. Not only is the story extremely predictable, but the dialogue really highlights how shitty it is. Some of the lines I heard come out of the characters mouths literally made me wince. When a big blue alien yells “This land is our land!” before a big CGI battle at the climax of a film, I don’t get inspired, I get bored. It doesn’t help that the protagonists look like characters straight out of a video-game, which completely eliminates any chance of me involving myself emotionally in the film, but the acting is all b-list. How can a film possibly be immersive with all of these gleaming issues constantly taking away from the experience? Just because it’s shown in headache-inducing 3D and littered with expensive effects doesn’t mean I’ll feel like I’m experiencing the film. What’s important if this immersive nature is to be achieved is involving writing. I have to care or be interested on some level to truly engage myself in a film and I have to believe the performances. This film has none of that, sure it’s big-budget eye-candy for any game-loving person who doesn’t give a shit about good storytelling but that’s about all it is.

James Cameron’s dazzling Avatar presents a confounding puzzle for the viewer: how much credit should go to the writer/director when the film owes so much of its impact to the digital wizards manufacturing the images?

This is not to detract at all from my admiration of Cameron, who could depict a trip to the grocery store with heart-pounding zest that would leave Jason Bourne breathless. As many have already pointed out, the plot of Avatar is fairly rudimentary — technology vs. nature, might vs. spirit, imperialism/colonization — yet the energy and wonderment that is so desirable from a blockbuster of this calibre is there in spades. The fantasy is thoroughly absorbing, bolstered by the astounding visual magic and lushly imagined universe (especially in 3D). There are familiar ideas from Cameron’s earlier works that seem to have been stepping stones to this piece, a dream project of his that has been 15 years in the making. It is a labor of love, filled with the excitement and enthusiasm of a teenager, and it shows.

Cameron reportedly needed the technology to catch up with his imagination. Now that it has, it’s not really clear if the appreciative “oohs” and “ahhs” of the audience are for the visual spectacle or the story-telling. Reflecting on what I enjoyed the most, the answer is the former, I’m afraid. As beautiful as Pandora is to look at, the green message of saving the environment is told in blunt strokes without any subtlety or nuance, especially from the perspective of the corporate and militant villains in the piece. It’s such a big cliche to the point that it is almost forgettable, overshadowed by the light show. A dreamy twelve-year old with a $500 million budget could probably conjure a similarly stunning feast of images with the same message. Of course Cameron executes the pacing, editing and characterizations with more finesse than a child could, but those things alone do not make a good film great.

The strongest non-f/x element of Avatar is the casting of Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine. Having worked with her on Aliens, Cameron clearly knows and trusts her abilities. Weaver takes the normally thankless, throwaway role of the sci-fi scientist and renders her as a very real, empathetic character. It’s just too bad that her role is so small. Stephen Lang, a veteran of the stage and a wonderful character actor in film, also manages to amp up the role of Colonel Miles Quaritch, a formulaic but formidable villain so necessary in an adventure of this scale.

Rumor has it that two sequels are planned. I hope that Cameron will use the opportunities to expand more on the story, having gained the assurance that the technology will succeed his vision and that audiences will fork over a lot of cash to see it.

No matter what you think or know about director James Cameron’s work, I can safely tell you to forget it all, which you will eventually, even if you don’t want to. Such is the power of his most recent project, in it Cameron makes himself right at home telling us a story of destiny, hope, greed, survival, but most importantly…about bonds, bonds between cultures and between people and their environment.

In it he lays bare our most shameful truths and shows us how weak and unwise we can be. It’s all part of the film of course, but it’s message is intended to touch a chord within our most conscious selves. It is (for me at least) without a doubt the most energetic environmental film I have ever experienced (a place until very recently held by the delightful Princess Mononoke), and a testament of and endless imagination that has found in an imaginary world, a way to expose two of our most inner truths: Selfishness and Love in the most real (and touching) of ways.

James Cameron has achieved with Avatar every director’s dream: A masterpiece for which to be remembered that is both deeply intimate and grand in it’s scope, both exquisite for the tough critique as it is popular for the casual movie goer. And he has topped it all with one of the strongest displays of female strength I have seen in years, and it’s all for the better.

Make no mistake and don’t let yourself be fooled by the millionaire propaganda that seems to surround bad cinema nowadays, this film is an instant classic, it will make you aware, and it will remain within you for years to come.

Like a beautiful girl whose voluptuous figure turns out to be an empire of silicon, this visual fest is an invitation to disappointment and reflection on the recent misdemeanors that are piercing the heart and soul of an art that’s becoming a machine.

Although, to most audiences, James Cameron’s Avatar might represent an exciting trip to a land of hovering mountains raped by the greed of corporate evil-doers, to some others it ends up feeling like the plastic surgery that protest films have recently gone through in order to reach a wider audience. The attacks on current American policies are quite open for a film of this kind, but they soon become, too obviously, the whole axis on which the moon Pandora where the film is set spins on, which actually makes one wonder if this could be a response to J.R.R. Tolkien’s despise of allegory.

It’s not wrong that a sci-fi film intends to criticize the realities of the world that watches the screen, but it is if it’s actually a fantasy that doesn’t transport you to another world full of new traditions, history, costumes, and beings that you’ve never heard of. Cameron’s script has a huge flaw: it only starts to explain the relationship of the Na’vi the blue indigenous species that inhabits Pandora with its home until the ending of the film like a prologue printed by the final pages of a novel and avoids building a mythology like the one the master of fantasy sci-fi, George Lucas, created.

The story to make this whole rant clear is about a vicious human corporation led by an evil Giovanni Ribisi that wants to take over the mines of the moon Pandora, which contain a precious mineral worth millions. This starts an experiment to try to nicely get the Na’vi out of the way: using Na’vi bodies controlled by humans avatars to get close to them. In the end, the experiment works as a deviated reference to the failed humanitarian missions in African countries that end up in violent confrontations, but this is just one of many references to the actual world. The destruction of ecological environments, interventionism, the futility of diplomacy when greed’s in the way, and the corporate culture in the US that demands for more resources no matter what, are some of these criticisms that fall flat while the audience is diverted by the visuals and the expectation of seeing some battle scenes, which, must I warn to blood-seeking movie goers: there are just a few of them.

There’s another problem with Cameron’s script: his abuse of ellipsis and his use of epically long scenes that don’t share any information and end up being weak attempts at creating visual poetry, keeps the story of the moon’s inhabitants form being richer or more profound. Realism also becomes challenged by fantasy because of the way the script was written. It is hard to believe that such evil characters as the main antagonists actually exist and, also, Pandora continuously defies Darwin with its strange flora and fauna, as well as the laws of physics, but that’s OK unless you’re too concerned about such matters.

With truly awesome CGI effects that haven’t actually achieved confusing the audience on what is real and what isn’t, but still do a great job; a flat clichéd story that only moves when fire devours innocence but in the end, who isn’t touched by people running form their flaming homes besides CNN junkies? and a coward attempt at criticizing the real world and the possible consequences of our metallic lust for industrial development, Avatar is a sci-fi fantasy that plays out like a symphony of plastic bottles.

James Cameron is a director of extremes. More than a decade in the making, Avatar is film displaying the extremes of Cameron’s gifts and faults as a filmmaker. Avatar is a tour-de-force sci-fi action spectacle that delivers all the promises in the realm of eye candy, but contains a bland, flavorless sugar pill of a plot.

Avatar follows the path of Jake Sully, a paraplegic jarhead who takes his dead brother’s place in an experimental program financed by monolithic blatantly evil corporation on a distant moon named Pandora. The corporation single-mindedly pursues a hard to obtain mineral named Unobtanium and will stop at nothing to harvest it, including employing a massive mercenary force. Jake is assigned to the avatar program, which has developed hybrids of humans and Pandora’s tribal race the Na’vi. Avatar drivers control the hybrids with their mind, hoping to find diplomatic solutions before the heavily armed mercenaries plow through the Na’vi civilization. The film is mostly about Sully’s transition from marine to honorary Na’vi who eventually leads his adopted race against his old one.

The Na’vi are clearly modeled after Native Americans, or rather modern movie interpretations of Native Americans right down to their sanitized, friendly pantheistic religion that American movie goers eat up. They are shot with a reverence that feels largely borrowed from Terrence Malick’s much better film The New World.

This is not a new story. Nor is it well told. It is Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces monomyth that has been used over and over and over again. Star Wars, Dances With Wolves, The Matrix, virtually every Disney film of the 90’s. Cameron adds nothing new to this formula (other than his usual slate of silly dialogue), simply using it as a vessel to enter the world, have conflict and shower the audience with spectacle.

Spectacle indeed. Avatar is at its best when Cameron pushes the action needle to the brink of snapping. After a decade of Matrix inspired frenetic action editing, it is refreshing to see a filmmaker who knows how to shoot action. The action set pieces approach poetry. Cameron knows exactly how to frame every shot, when to edit and when to move the camera. This is how spectacle should be. Soaring and beautiful. The 3D effects are used fairly well. 3D technology has advanced since the 50’s but it’s use still recalls SCTV’s Count Floyd’s Monster Chiller Theater where the filmmakers go out of their way to shove things in your face to emphasize the gimmick. Avatar has less of those moments than most 3D films and for the most part uses the technology to be immersive instead of intrusive.

Performance wise, there’s not too much to speak of. The actors aren’t given much to work with here. Archtypes abound and the performances are mixed as a result. Giovanni Ribisi’s corporate meanie character has two modes: smug, douchy and evil or hand-wringing and worried. Michele Rodriguez plays the standard Michele Rodriguez tough girl character. Sam Worthington carries the load as Sulley, but the character almost performs itself. Two standouts are Sigourney Weaver who is wry, sorrowful and funny and Stephen Lang as the military heavy who chews and gnashes on his character with pulpy glee.

Avatar is ultimately an exercise in duality. An environmental parable made mostly by computers, anti-military with adrenaline inducing war scenes, and an anti-corporate screed financed by Rupert Murdoch. But it mostly suffers from its overused and simple plot. When Avatar turns up the volume it soars, when it turns it becomes a drag.

An astronomic, glorious achievement in cinema, an experience unlike any other and one that proves, almost instantly, to be the universal touchstone of visual effects supremacy. In the most grandiose display of CG environments and advanced motion capture ever committed to screen, Cameron has ushered in a new phase of filmmaking that breathlessly directs the way to a fully involved, triumphantly immersive audiovisual event – one that must be experienced in its eye-popping 3D to be believed. The monumental creation and development of the film’s sci-fi world cannot be overstated; each incandescent flora lighting up the night like an aquatic glow box, each alien creature’s extravagant features and uniquely whirring physicality – this is nothing less than cosmos being born in front of your eyes, and you being taken there. An epic sensory spectacle in the truest of senses.

While watching the first trailers of Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) a couple of months back, my response was as follows: another fantasy-world flick where Jarjar Binks meets The Land Before Time meets some-video-game-creature-I-can’t-recall-now. Not bothered and not impressed by early critics’ claims that “this epic movie will change film-viewing as we know it,” I didn’t build myself up to expect anything more than a fantasy film with a heavy dollop of CGI, and probably next-to-no original plot.

On that last point, perhaps I may still claim my initial response as accurate and spot-on: Avatar is indeed packed full with CGI and lacked a freshly original plot – but here, I write this as a compliment (and anyway, its originality lies elsewhere). I’m talking about the bare bones of a storyline that is the stuff of most, if not all, epics. In other words, Avatar stands firm as a conventional ‘adventure-epic’ and doesn’t make any strained attempt to incorporate any sophistication into the plot. The same goes for parts of the dialogue. The requisite pre-battle inspirational rally is not too far from the likes of Independence Day, as are the caricatures of most character stereotypes. Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But that’s where any possible weakesses of the film ends. Beyond such nitpicking, Avatar is very much a breath-taking movie of epic proportions, and it feels every bit of the ‘movie event’ it has been set up to be. Yes, the praise and the 5-star reviews are all true, and they do speak the truth. This is a film that has to be watched, and will be something that’ll be in most folks’ Blu-Ray libraries to come.

The storyline is straightforward (minimal spoilers ahead): Jake Sully is sent to learn about the alien race called the Na’vi by using an avatar, he goes native; in the meantime, his fellow humans plot and scheme to decimate the alien race and their home in order to exploit the precious resources from the planet Pandora. Conflict ensues between the Na’vi and the human aggressors, humans are driven out, Sully remains with the Na’vi.

It’s probably inevitable that the film will be compared against similar films like LOTR and Star Wars, but even then, I still feel that Avatar has a more nuanced dimension that bears closer reading (that is, multiple-multiple viewings). It’s not just the amount of CGI that makes it ‘more interesting’ than LOTR, for instance. Rather, it’s the manner in which the CGI has fused itself with the fabric of the film into something that is, to my mind, post-cinema. I’m excited about the 3D + CGI, and I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around it fully, but what I want to say is this: the CGI isn’t foregrounded ostentatiously, it doesn’t scream, “LOOKIT ME I’M 5 YEARS’ WORTH OF ROUND-THE-CLOCK RENDERING!!!” Like a cool breeze after the rain, the deft combination of CGI and 3D rendering was refreshing and invigorating, especially after a steady diet of films that purport to be ‘realistic’ and ‘true to life,’ when all they do is just call attention to their own artificiality. Avatar manages to “completely and truly suspend your disbelief,” as a friend succinctly notes. It creates its own reality that can truly boast a thorough realism that is a fresh invention, and not a simulation.

Perhaps that’s just it – the film is the first in an incredibly long time that made me forget I was watching a film. Short of being a total immersive environment, Avatar embraces you, comforts you, and even stands aside to let you breathe in the air on your own. The film and its visual texture works exactly like the coupling/fusing mechanism that binds all of Pandora and its inhabitants together in one complete bio-network. Once you fuse your being with the creature, you control it, it becomes part of you, you become a part of it. Years of consuming ‘realistic’ films that claim to showcase realism of narrative or realism of the image (sigh, Transformers) has done nothing to change my mind that they’re all already ontologically artificial. Here, though, is a film that is, while certainly an artefact of technological mastery, is nevertheless one that has generated its own reality so convincingly and evocatively that it might just be the only CGI+3D film thus far to manifest a profound understanding of ‘realism’ in contemporary cinema.

I have one major problem with Avatar and that is what it means for the future of my home entertainment system. How can I ever replicate the visceral spectacle I experienced with a five-story screen, digital sound blaring, and 3D technology that is so beyond any I’ve seen before that nothing short of ‘blown away’ can describe it? I’m not sure I ever could and that is what may make this film as successful or more than its creator’s last, Titanic. People aren’t going to want to just go home and simply recall the brilliant, all-encompassing world of Pandora; they will want to immerse themselves again. I would totally go a second time, undaunted by the prospect of sitting through a two and a half hour film, because this movie drew me in, made me forget I was watching something that was around 85% computer generated, caused the 3D glasses on my nose to disappear, and showed me the wonder that awaits if space travel ever becomes feasible for the general population as a vacation excursion. If you have an IMAX theatre showing it anywhere near you, go out and run—do not walk or meander willy-nilly—run over, sit back, relax, and experience the future of cinema as we know it. The movie theatre will never be the same again.

There is a story underneath the technological wonder and it is not as flimsy as some may lead you to think. Sure, it is a tried and true tale of imperialistic might pit against an indigenous people willing to stand tall and defend their heritage, their beliefs, and their land. Allusions to the Iraqi War are prevalent, ‘unattainium’ is the oil located below the native Na’vi’s home and the humans have arrived, ready to use the stick and destroy everything in its wake to get it once diplomatic relations—imposing their language, their education, and their ideals—have failed. Is it something that detracts from the film as a whole? I don’t think so. James Cameron first envisioned this world fifteen years ago, shortly after the end of the first Gulf War, and has revved up his progress in the past four, now that the technology could sustain his lofty ambitions, the same time in which we saw the largest dissent for the new War on Terror. But this story is timeless; you can go back to any imperialistic endeavor—stealing the Native Americans’ land, Europe’s takeover of the New World and Africa, Napoleon, Alexander the Great—and see how common the theme is. However, being made in America’s Hollywood, a world inhabited by liberal creatures with money, the idea of USA-bashing isn’t hard to accept.

None of that matters, though, because once you as an audience catch that first glimpse of Pandora, any preconceptions or ideologies leave your mind, emptying your head to just let the world wash over you. All the political commentary can come later and be debated for days; my mind will always go back to the amazing technical achievement that was laid before me. A guy like Stephen Lang has taken the caricature of a gung-ho army/marine man looking for a fight and created the ultimate, unsympathetic villain, an antagonist to give us a reason to discover this new world. He is the epitome of someone that hopes diplomacy will fail, because he wants to see destruction. With carte blanche and a penchant for blood, especially at the hands of an enemy he doesn’t, nor does he want to, understand, the Na’vi nation stands little chance. But he needs someone on the inside, a human to infiltrate and map out the infrastructure of the village he is about to invade and obliterate … he needs Jake Sully, a marine. Sully only has the job because his biologic make-up is identical to recently deceased scientist brother Tom, a coincidence that leads speculation to whether that death was militarily planned in order to put a ‘grunt’ Jarhead on the field. What these numbers men don’t understand, though, with all their statistics and big picture viewpoints, is how magical Pandora is and that by getting someone inside, they may just be creating the biggest opponent to their endgame.

This is where Cameron’s innovation shines bright. Sam Worthington’s Sully, a paraplegic who is given an organic avatar body, a genetically made Na’vi, to live and breathe in, is tasked with the job of security detail as the scientists trained to deal with the natives work. Jake is not the simpleton all assume, however, and soon the all-encompassing deity Eywa chooses him as a special creature to be studied and trained. We as an audience reap the benefits in being able to watch him become one of The People, learning the language, the biology, the religion, and the lay of the land. Pandora is a gorgeously painted landscape with jungle creatures and flying mountains, all connected through this spiritual uplink—think a mix of “Battlestar Galactica’s” Cylons and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’s Gaia. Every single beast is a completely autonomous being, part of a very regimented food chain. The Na’vi may be the most advanced, but they are not the most powerful. The wild is full of monsters, but they haven’t yet learned to ravage their environment, they still live in harmony and according to the rules set forth by their mystic leaders and past heritage. One doesn’t just ride a horse-like animal or fly with a pterodactyl-like being, one must connect with them, port in and connect the fibers of their soul to become a single unit. All work together, creating a magical utopia that the stubborn and selfish human invaders aren’t willing to spend the time to understand.

Cameron gives us a three act structure of exposition, (dealing with the two sides and what is at stake), infiltration, (allowing us to experience the native culture and side with their plight), and execution, (the war between worlds that will either end with the destruction of a people or the return of an invader to their own dying land, a final fight reminiscent to Return of the Jedi). And through it all, boredom never sets in. With three-dimensionality of the likes I have never seen, the visuals won’t let you even take a breath. Just a month ago I saw A Christmas Carol on the same screen and the comparison isn’t even close. Avatar doesn’t utilize new glasses; it is the conversion and filming process that has been advanced exponentially by Cameron and his team. I can honestly say that the entire IMAX screen was in full depth of focus for the duration with very minimal motion blurring. When you had out of focus background imagery to compete with foreground clarity, there is a little depth plane flatness, but for the most part is it seamless. You don’t even notice the lack of or abundance of images sticking out into your face because the world is so infinitely deep. Foliage goes back into the distance, flies buzz about around the characters and into your view, and even the subtitles exist on a separate layer. You no longer have to turn your head to see different parts of the screen separately; it is all there in pristine clarity.

Also, this is the future in computer animation and creating a completely lifelike organism. Whether this technology can sustain ‘life’ in a virtual human is unknown, but these humanoid creatures are a giant step forward in alleviating any ‘dead-eye’ problems we have seen in the past. The expressiveness of the Na’vi is uncanny, taking the attributes of the actors that play them and creating around that substructure. More akin to the performer in make-up than completely replaced by pixels, the characterizations are fully realized life-forms with liquid clarity in their eyes, facial creases for full range of emotion, and the most organic movements ever created. Couple this technology with the performances of Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington, both rising fast in the film world, and you cannot go wrong. Worthington is slowly showing his worth and why so many big tent pole projects have turned to him—an unproven talent—to lead them to box-office glory. Even Sigourney Weaver’s avatar has retained her facial ticks, giving her youth in Na’vi blue while reuniting with her Aliens director. It was also good to see a guy like Joel Moore break out of the comedy genre, lending his nerdy humor to the drama unfolding onscreen.

Avatar really does live up to the hype, even surpassing it in some respects. The three-dimensionality is wholly unique and ready to change the landscape of cinema forever. Looking through reflective surfaces, giving human actors realistic depth, and integrating computer graphics seamlessly around them has never been better. The acting is great, even in the fictional Na’vi people, adding a layer of realism to what would five years ago seem utterly cartoonish. The story may be simple and unoriginal in its core structure, but that shouldn’t matter at all here. This isn’t a plot driven indie film character study; this is a big time blockbuster fantasy film with heart, something I think people also forget when talking about Titanic. Both films have a simple love story at its center, and both contain a conflict to help drive along its tale while showing us incomparable visuals. I’ll admit that without the 3D experience, even the gorgeous animation would have made me only give the film an 8 or a 9 out of 10. But that is selling what this achievement is short. As a vehicle for a brand new world of technology and as an all-encompassing cinematic endeavor, you cannot discount the beauty and power the IMAX 3D gives it. Avatar is the first of its kind and a trendsetter if there ever was one. James Cameron is back and ready to tackle the job of improving his medium, to make it better and better with every new work. I, for one, couldn’t have asked for more and can’t wait to see what he does next.

Avatar 10/10

http://jaredmobarakreviews.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/avatar/

I wonder how many times I said "HOLY beep to myself while watching this. Haha. I was litterally that impressed with the 3D.

The motion capture is indeed impressive and from now on, I don’t see why everyone won’t be using it when they want realistic animated characters.

It was hard to stop and take notice of what was going on at first because I was so facinated by the visuals. But eventually I was able to concerntrate on the film, even though I was constantly impressed by the film visually.

The performances were very solid. Sam Worthington is indeed a good actor and one I’m sure will make it far, though it seems like he’s already “there”.

The story was suprisingly sad. In fact it almost got too sad for me.

There are funny moments, sweet and romantic moments, and of course the action is rip-roaring fun. I praise Cameron for not resorting to the awful shaky-cam. I was able to see everything that was going on and enjoy every minute of it.

In fact, the pacing is fantastic. There was not a minute of the film where I found myself not entertained.

Now the film is cliched, but most of the cliches I was able to brush off.

This film met all my expectations. It’s not a masterpiece, but then again I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece.

But I was expecting an epic, visually stunning wild ride and I got one with extra emotion, which is a bonus!

Kudos to Cameron on a great film.