Oh, Avatar, I wanted to adore you. And you make it difficult to truly hate you, because you're so lovely to behold. However, near the end, Avatar is Picasso involved in a Ponzi scheme, it's Einstein making math mistakes, it's the kid who has been accepted to Harvard getting hooked on meth during his senior year. A very odd confluence of events conspire to make what should have been one of the best films of the decade an odd afterthought. In making the film a "message" movie James Cameron left out the "entertainment" portion near the end, and in all that sanctimony the beauty of the piece gets lost. If you're scoring along at home I give the look and CGI an A+, the first 100 minutes of the film a solid A, and the ending of the movie a D+.
The story is as follows: Corporal Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a Marine paralyzed from the waist down; he's taken his twin brother's place on a mission to the alien planet of Pandora. The year is 2154, and what's left of the human race has taken to plundering a substance called Unobtanium (clever, right?) from the local indigenous population called the Na'Vi. The mineral is evidently priceless, and the human race has mounted a huge effort to secure it. Jake is placed, via futuristic virtual methods, in a nine-foot hybrid Na'Vi body, his consciousness combined with alien DNA. He's asked to provide security for another Avatar (who, unlike him, knows the language and customs), hopefully to secure a diplomatic solution to the growing tensions between the Na'Vi and the humans. The team heads out on a mission, and things go poorly, forming the first action beat of the film.
Differing factions of the human marauders have different motivations. Sigourney Weaver's character wants to learn the science and botany of the new planet. Giovanni Ribisi is the corporate overlord, beholden to the stockholders. Stephen Lang is Colonel Miles Quaritch, the hard-charging leader of both security and assault maneuvers. The Na'Vi consider their nature and planet sacred, a fact that roils the "powers that be" of the human consortium tasked with gathering Unobtanium. In some respects the film feels much like The Last of the Mohicans, a dwindling race confronted with superior weaponry in the hands of an arrogant and disrespectful populace.
As I mentioned previously, the first 110 minutes of the film are both a marvel and a technological delight. The film really works when the narrative is placed front in center, when we're asked to imagine a new world ... and then shown it in all its awesome glory. The line between perception and reality has been obliterated by James Cameron here: it all looks real, and it all looks cool. You're placed into an authentic universe where you get to learn everything over again, you get to see plants lights up, you get to judge if a predator is a threat. It's a sublime treat, and more than halfway through it seemed as though Cameron had locked up "Film of the Decade" status. And then...
I don't know how to get into this without major spoilers, so I'll couch my concerns in the vaguest possible language. It seems to me that Cameron brought a worldview into this one, an ecologically friendly take, a "green" mentality. Which would have worked out just dandy if the film didn't lose all semblance of balance once it decides who is "right" and "wrong" in the equation. Great movies require choice, they wrench at your heart and ask you to place yourself inside the characters. Only near the end, some of the characters are straight out of 1950s Dick Tracy "Bad Guy" school. They are woefully shallow and one-note. Certain other guys become "heroes," and whoo boy, they are just as noble as can be. It's the rote and typical hero mythology that's been done, re-done, and then microwaved again for leftovers. The strange thing is, Cameron always brings us non-traditional stories -- so why did his grand culmination end with pulp comic-dom? Why would he present a giant "don't litter" PSA with the final beat of this lush landscape? It was also odd to watch the film pitch "get closer to nature!" as it burned through hundreds of millions of dollars; using the newest available technologies. It felt manipulative and forced. And Avatar should have been better than that. Once Avatar decides that humans are a destructive force it makes it difficult to care, because you're not asked to choose sides or think about your own actions or accountability anymore. You're simply bludgeoned with Avatar's effects as the baddies chase around the good guys.
Still, I hold a soft spot in my heart for the initial promise of Avatar, no matter the payoff. This will usher in a new world, and within two decades we'll see films made by one person (and one person only) in the comfort of their home studio. You'll no longer need $100 million dollars and a marketing team; the power of your ideas will have a chance to shine through unimpeded. That's the world I'm interested in, the staggering potential of Avatar, the next James Cameron, the guy who absolutely nails the third act and changes the way we think forever.
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