Avatar reviewed

It had to happen eventually.  I couldn't not watch the highest-grossing movie ever made even though I thought I would be watching this a lot sooner.  I can't see the 3-D effects since I got glasses back in middle school and the first-run DVD was pathetic for all of its scope and grandeur of the world James Cameron created.  So I waited and bided my time while the inevitable backlash settled in but I knew my time would come eventually.  Then the massive 3-Disc Edition was released and I knew what I had to do.  I bought it and explored the world of Pandora.  And unlike what the backlash dictated I should think, I do like Avatar.  Besides I already made that mistake with Titanic and I still have to re-watch that one of these days.

It's the future and Earth is dying.  But there is hope, there is a planet called Pandora that's filled with life and some high-selling mineral called Unobtanium that humans want.  Of course, there's the matter of native population, the Na'Vi who won't stand for it.  At first the humans tried diplomacy with schools but things didn't work out.  But there is one hope for diplomacy, the Avatar program in which people are linked with custom-made Na'Vi to go to a Na'Vi village and learn their ways and customs.  Enter Jake Sulley, a crippled marine who's twin brother died while training for a Avatar but Jake still has similar enough DNA to pull it off and be the one to gain the Na'Vi's trust.  But it isn't long before the big bad military and big bad corporation has deemed that negotiations have failed and blow the heck out of it.

Let me ask you a question.  When was the last time you ever believed a CGI creation was real and took it's reality for granted?  Was it Star Wars?  Jurassic Park?  It doesn't matter what the last time was but I say this with no hyperbole that Avatar has the best CGI ever and I do mean ever.  You know you done something right when you don't question which part is CGI or real nor do you question if they are effects at all.  I mean obviously we don't have anything that bright and colorful on Earth but the fact that I thought we could even for a couple hours says wonders about the effects.  The world of Pandora is so immense, so grand that it is a wonder for the eyes to behold.  It really deserves all the praise that it received past and present.

But on the flipside, a lot of accusations have been made that James Cameron didn't really focus on the script that much...they're right.  It is predictable and it is paint-by-numbers.  The relationship with Jake and the Na'vi, Dances with Wolves.  The relationship with the Na'vi and nature , Pocahontus.  The message that saving the rain forest is good, Fern Gully.  While Cameron may have slipped as a writer, his skills as a director haven't faded away since he has constructed something out of those familiar elements in a entertaining fashion.  Even if the movie may be a bit overlong, I never was bored.

It helps that you have a very entertaining character in Colonel Quaritch played by a seriously jacked up Stephen Lang.  Sure he may be the villain but he is the manliest man that ever was a man in a movie in years!  He's a man that has a knife in his big-ass mecha because knife-less mechas are for women.  He's a man that doesn't need to breathe if there's killing to be done.  He's a man that does stuff while on fire and then he puts it out like it's just an annoyance.  That's a man!

As for everyone else, the only one who comes close in Lang is Giovanni Ribisi as the Big Bad Corporation who's over-the-topness makes him entertaining to watch.  The rest of the humans don't fare very well.  Sam Worthington, the future of action, is unable to contain his Australian accent half of the time and the other half he just seems bored.  Sigourney Weaver also has no energy and seems to be bored as well.  As for the people playing the Na'vi.  They're good but to determine how much is real acting through motion-capture and how much was enhanced wholesale by CGI.

This may be another white-guilt movie but it is a highly entertaining one.  As a visual-effects showcase and an action movie, it truly delivers the goods.  As a complete experience, it does falter quite a bit.  However, it really depends on what you're looking for and if you're looking for a good sci-fi, then this is the right movie.  But right now, I'm just eagerly awaiting the other movies.

8/10