Avatar

Disclaimer:

The movie I’m looking at this week is rated: PG-13

There will be some content (including swearing and violence) that is inappropriate for children.

This marks my very first James Cameron film I’ve covered on this blog, but I have a feeling it won’t be the last. What a way to start off as well with what’s, in my opinion, one of his worst. To be straight up, I am a bit biased with this one because when I first saw it I absolutely hated it. My feelings were primarily colored by the fact that this was, and still remains, one of the highest grossing films of all time and yet its plot is so Middle School classroom special which, to me, makes it the WORST kind of insulting. You can probably also tell from my overemphasis on these words that I still have some strong feelings over this material. How could a truly talented filmmaker create one of the most widely viewed messterpieces in film history? When I first saw this movie, this was the primary question that was on my mind and I was relentless. Today I hope to soften my view to some degree and look at it from more of an objective standpoint, though I do expect my personal feelings will still rear their ugly head from time-to-time. If you’re willing to go on this journey with me, I’d like to thank you in advance for bearing with my inevitable outbursts of rage (especially if you like this movie yourself), and if I do see something that I legitimately like I’ll do my best to point it out and give it the recognition it deserves.

To start off, one of the biggest things that I did like in this movie (I imagine like most others) was the look and feel of Pandora. While not being the most clearly defined from a worldbuilding standpoint (is that just the theme of my reviews right now?), I can’t deny that it definitely looks cool and is fun to watch the characters prance around in it to some degree. Outside of that I’m having a difficult time thinking of many other things that I legitimately enjoyed about the movie prior to properly opening this review. Given the tone of the last paragraph, I’m sure you’d rightfully assume that most of what I have to say about this film to start off is negative. Naturally my biggest gripe is about the story and writing, but that also leaves out the flat characters, unoriginal message, and even plagiaristic ideas it has throughout. Sure I’m not looking forward to this journey, especially with the recent release of the sequel to this movie Avatar: The Way of Water (please don’t make me review that…), but maybe there really is something I missed the first time. That’s probably my favorite part of these reviews that I do: how I’m able to go back and notice things about movies I never noticed before. Without any more beating around the bush, let’s lie down in that avatar mind-transfer machine and get going.

Pray to Eywa…just…pray to Eywa. This is Avatar.

Not gonna lie, this is a pretty good start.

I gotta give props that Avatar was not only shot entirely in IMAX, but they took full advantage of that. There are several sweeping shots that make you feel like you’ve been transported to another world and it’s drop-dead gorgeous.

But then, you know…they start talking.

*When I was lying there in the VA hospital, with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, I started having these dreams of flying.*
Dare I say we have a free-spirited protagonist?!

One thing that becomes clear from the outset is that the movie doesn’t have any momentum. There’s no catalyst to this tale outside of our main character Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) being shipped out on a mission his brother was supposed to go on because he died. I know this is supposed to make us feel for our narrator, but first, we never learn more about his brother, and second, look at how they explain it:

Since your genome is identical to his, you could step into his shoes, so to speak.

Where do I even begin with that?

You’re saying you want to send this guy with no scientific background into a deathtrap just because his DNA is relatively similar to his brother’s? Okay…bear in mind that we’re not even 3 minutes into this nearly 3 hour movie. I hate to say it, but this movie just beat At World’s End in terms of insane logic. I didn’t think that was technically possible, but the evidence clearly stands before you, because it at least took At World’s End 5 minutes to lose me.

They’re sending a guy off to a planet that’s been described as worse than Hell itself to do something he’s never done before in his life because he “had a brother.”

…One of the world’s highest grossing movies, everyone. Can’t you just tell?

Another thing you’ll notice is that the world-building is very shaky. When they touch down on the planet, they show off these mechs the humans use which really just makes anyone driving it bigger. They even have the mechs carry giant guns and giant knives with their machine arms. Is it that hard to come up with a cool robot?

Insert immediate dumb.

Come on, this is the same guy that made The Terminator, you gotta have something better than this.

Soon after we’re introduced to Colonel Miles Quaritch (played by Stephen Lang) who only digs us deeper into the hole that this movie is.

*You are not in Kansas anymore -*
SHUT UP!

Yeah, we get ourselves a generic military speech from every generic military commander who ever generically militaried courtesy of discount Ricardo Montalban. Of course he’s here to set up how dangerous Pandora is and the fact he’s obviously going to be the bad guy at the end of the movie, but couldn’t they have made him a little more interesting? Every time he’s onscreen I just feel disappointed that the movie isn’t about to break out into some country song and dance number.

The movie wants to spit out more characters who’ll be equally uninteresting so we also meet Norm, Jake’s soon-to-be science partner (played by Joel David Moore), and Grace, the head of science operations (played by Sigourney Weaver).

The thing about Norm is that there isn’t a thing about him. He’s just the sidekick, the Robin to Jake’s Batman so to speak. Sure he knows things (so I’ve been told), but he never gets much of an opportunity to showcase it throughout the movie since so much of the focus is on Jake. In the end there isn’t much to say about him, so let’s move on.

Grace on the other hand is supposed to be rough-and-tumble I guess, but she’s just not convincing. It’s weird that in the early days of this blog I reviewed Galaxy Quest where Sigourney Weaver played a character completely unlike what you’d expect her to play, and now, in Avatar, she’s playing the character you’d expect but playing it wrong. Every line she says sounds like a watered down Ripley from Aliens (which coincidentally James Cameron also directed).

I don’t blame Weaver for this necessarily, mainly because at this point she’d been out of a role like this for years (kinda like Harrison Ford in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) so she probably just wasn’t used to it anymore. That and at this point she’s just getting older, so when you try to play your 60 year-old self like your 37 year-old self there’s going to be a disconnect.

Weaver expresses her anger over her casting - I mean her situation, by taking her complaint to the CEO of Blatant Symbolism Inc., Parker Selfridge (played by Giovanni Ribisi).

*I love this putter!*
You can tell he's a heartless businessman by the way he practices his putting on the job.

He also gives us the reason why he’s a heartless businessman.

***This*** *is why we're here: unobtainium.*
Okay, that's just *embarrassingly* bad and clearly a **first draft** idea.
Was "reallyrarium" already taken?

What’s even more insulting about this is that unobtainium isn’t much of a driving force in this movie. We only hear Parker mention it twice. That’s it! It would hit harder if say the Na’vi used unobtainium for the sake of construction, making tools, medicine, weapons, or even if it was sacred to them in some way kinda like how the Wakandans used vibranium in Black Panther. That would create a stronger conflict throughout the rest of the movie. But nope, it’s just there. I’ll give it this: it is embarrassingly funny.

Speaking of embarrassingly funny, Giovanni Ribisi is so wasted in this role. His whole purpose is just to hammer in the movie’s bullshit message that several other movies have delivered better, and he hammers by explaining the Na’vi community is sitting on top of the largest unobtainium mine on the planet which is why his company and the marines want to drive them away.

Well enough of that scene. Norm and Jake get set up for their first avatar linkage together which goes about as well as you’d expect.

*Wait, so it turns out that sending a guy on a journey he wasn't qualified for is a* ***bad*** *idea?*

Jake gets so excited that he can use his legs that he runs outside across the base.

[NORM] *Jake, we're not supposed to be running*!

After this bit of excitement, Jake exits his linker to talk to the Colonel again which is about as awkward and heavy-handed as you would expect.

*The "Avatar" program is a bad joke. Buncha limp-dicked science majors.*
Wait, he's gonna be the bad guy?
Totally didn't see that coming.

For real, this just sounds like a bad after-school special about anti-bullying with more swearing. It wouldn’t be out of place at all to randomly see one of the My Little Pony characters pop up to further drive home the point that’s already been driven home so hard that it crashed through the other side of the house.

So children, what was Colonel Quaritch’s mistake?

He didn’t follow safety protocol
He was mean to the scientists
He said “yes” to this movie

Very good, children!

Anyway: Jake’s first mission. That goes about as well as you’d expect too. But first let’s talk about the world a bit.

Once again I have to stress that it looks ***outstanding***.

While it looks great, there’s nothing underneath. No layers, no development, no nothing. For example, look at this wildlife.

Sure it looks cool, but what is this?
Basically a reptile lemur monkey.

Nice, but what is it?
Basically a rhino if it were also a hammerhead triceratops.

This one should be obvious.
You'll notice as well that they try to make these animals seem different just by giving them an extra pair of limbs.
Extra limbs does not a new species make.
You just made a mutated regular animal.

That, and remember when Colonel Quaritch said this?

*Every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for Jujubes.*
Most of them are pretty harmless actually.

It’s only the big cat with stolen Jurassic Park sounds that’s legitimately dangerous (seriously, Spielberg should probably demand royalties). I can understand wanting to subvert expectations and painting Quaritch as an ignorant meathead, but there still should’ve been some payoff with that. The planet is literally called “Pandora,” named after a Greek legend about all the world’s atrocities being released from a box, can’t you at least somewhat deliver what you promised?

Also, there isn’t a whole lot of “wildlife doing things” in this movie. It’s pretty disappointing. Sure there are moments of Jake training with the Na’vi with wildlife, but they don’t really attack that much. The only scenes outside of this one here with Jake on his first mission that involve animals attacking are Jake’s first night in the forest with the hyena mutants and the climax. That’s it! To help convey the message that nature is superior to technology, you should really show more nature kicking ass.

We’ll get to the stupid Na’vi metaphors later, but for now Jake gets separated from Grace and Norm on the mission because safety’s a joke and ends up being chased by Cat Monster. His science team tries to look for him but turns up nothing.

*I'm sorry, Doc, he's just gonna have to hang on 'til morning.*
Oh, this is also Trudy, the pilot (played by Michelle Rodriguez).

*He won't make it 'til morning*.
You'll ***never*** guess what he does.

We then move on to Jake, of course, surviving in the forest when he gets attacked by mutated hyenas and saved by Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldana). Thus begins the Dances With Wolves portion of the movie. I’m definitely not the first reviewer to mention this, but it doesn’t get any less infuriating so I’m talking about it.

Much like Dances With Wolves, Jake will eventually realize the error of his ways as a marine grunt, join the side of the indigenous, and show those assholes what for. But it’s different because it’s -

IN SPACE!!!!!

*You're like a baby: making noise, don't know what to do.*
At least we agree on something.

We also get to know a bit about how the Na’vi view nature and the environment which is no different than any other stereotypical Native in western cinema. The world provides for you while you provide for the world, that’s essentially it. My biggest problem is how this race of people lightyears away from Earth somehow managed to develop very similar ideas to indigenous American tribes. Funny how that works.

Let me just say that Neytiri’s logic in her intro is also hard to follow. She rescues Jake from the hyenas, but is still pissed at him for forcing her to kill the hyenas. If you didn’t want to kill the hyenas, why not just let Jake die?

*If you love your little forest friends, why not let them just kill my ass?*
That's what I said!

Apparently we learn later that some floating jellyfish sperm chose him to be the savior of the Na’vi.

You so deserve all that money...

Neytiri draws the line at saving him though. She just wants to leave Jake behind and not teach him their ways because in her eyes he’s a lost cause. Okay, I wasn’t loving the floating jellyfish sperm, but if they’re supposed to mean something then actually listen to them you friggin’ idiot.

Jake follows Neytiri to her village but gets captured by Tsu’tey (played by Laz Alonso) and brought before the chief, Eytukan (played by Wes Studi), who’s also Neytiri’s father. Because why wouldn’t Neytiri just be a random villager, of course she’s the chief’s daughter. Neytiri’s mother, Mo’at (played by Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder), decides that Neytiri needs to teach Jake their ways to -

*see if your insanity can be cured*.
That's actually a pretty good way of putting it.

I think at this point the movie just wants things to get moving, so it introduces a handful of characters relatively quickly. Despite that, it still takes the movie 8 and-a-half minutes to get from the floating jellyfish sperm scene back to the base. There’s just a lot of talking in between those 2 moments. If the story was more of an original creation then I might be able to forgive this, but if you’ve ever seen any other movie like this then you know exactly where it’s going.

Sure the tribes people don’t trust him right now and think he’s an idiot, but over the course of the movie they’ll grow to understand/like him and vice versa while Jake learns more about how they live and adapts to their ways. That’s honestly most of what the next 30 minutes of runtime is: a training montage. You know training montages are cool because they’re short, right?

I kinda don’t wanna talk about it because it’s ridiculously predictable. The only “unique” thing the movie explores is the Na’vi’s ponytails. Apparently they can use them to plug into the world around them. Aww, baby’s first metaphor, how adorable. We see Jake’s relationship with Neytiri and Tsu’tey get stronger over time, Jake reports back to Quaritch and Selfridge with village blueprints (until he doesn’t), Jake gets himself a pet pterodactyl, and we learn about the legend of Toruk.

*Toruk chose him. It has only happened 5 times since the time of the First Songs*.
I'm sure this won't come back into the movie at all.

It’s one thing if a movie is so bad that it takes me several paragraphs to break down one stupid thing, but I think it’s worse when a movie is way too comfortable being predictable. What else is there for me to say? You already know the rest of the plot of the movie.

This isn’t always a bad thing. If a filmmaker uses a predictable story but gives their own unique spin on it then it can actually be surprisingly interesting. I think you can guess that this movie doesn’t do that. Basically: nature rules, humans drool. Jake’s gonna show the Na’vi what he’s worth, rise up against the humans, and reclaim Pandora for the Natives with practically no original twists along the way. In case you didn’t know, the trailer also gave it away. Yippee.

Strangely enough this reminds me of a movie with an environmental message I covered before that added more layers to its story and themes: WALL-E. In that movie they not only presented their ideas through a more character-driven story, but offered a more optimistic take on the subject matter. WALL-E not only had humans making mistakes and causing the Earth to be left in ruin, but the humans were also the ones to correct their mistakes by rebuilding the world they left behind. So much more interesting.

In The Lorax (the original animated short, not the Illumination movie) the Once-Ler is greedy and obsessed with corporate expansion until he realizes the error of his ways after he’s destroyed everything. He then takes it upon himself to instill the drive to regrow the planet in a child who cares a whole awful lot. The story ends with the fate of the world ambiguous and forces the watcher/reader to think about what they’ll do to restore their homeland as well.

It’s crazy how in those stories made for kids they’re able to get across more complex ideas with this same material than Avatar does when it’s supposed to be the “adult version.” Yes, DC called. They want you to stop stealing their schtick.

Now seems like a great time for Jake to officially become an Omaticaya and have family friendly sex with Neytiri.

Wait, but all is not well in paradise -

Jake links into his avatar body and tries to dismantle the bulldozers, but to no avail. He runs back to the village with Neytiri only to interrupt a war room conversation. Meanwhile Quaritch caught Jake trying to dismantle the bulldozers on camera and forcibly cancels his avatar link session.

That punch felt really satisfying.
Can I see it again?

Of course they all end up getting chewed out by Quaritch and Selfridge - yada yada yada - but the stupidest part is this:

*They're not gonna give up their home. They're not gonna make a deal*.
Wait, so the Blatant Symbolism Inc. and the military had access to **every** researcher's video logs the whole time?

If that’s the case then why even have the scenes of Jake reporting to Quaritch and Selfridge before? Since either of them could’ve just checked his video logs at any time, why wouldn’t they just watch those to get the information they needed? Also, how long have they been watching them? Clearly long enough for them to know the exact log that feeds into their plans. What makes it more difficult to follow is that we never get a solid idea of when everything is taking place.

When did Jake make this video log? 2 weeks ago? 1 month ago? Yesterday? Also if Quaritch had discovered this earlier than now, why wouldn’t he have decided to attack the Na’vi sooner before waiting for Jake to turn on them? That seems like a large tactical oversight. There are so many questions pertaining to just this minute-long reveal that never get answered which just drives me up the wall.

Ultimately Jake convinces Selfridge to let him negotiate with the Na’vi to move before they bulldoze their village. It doesn’t work so Jake and Grace get captured by the Na’vi. Did I forget to mention she’s here? She’s here. This leads to the military destroying the village and Eytukan dying. Wait, who’s Eytukan?

Oh right, Neytiri's father.
He had so much development I'm surprised I forgot.

So now Jake is outcast from both societies: Humans and Na’vi. Why? Because we’re doing the “Liar Revealed” thing. He also gets arrested along with Norm and Grace.

*Hey, is that Trudy, the pilot? Yeah! Say, why is a* ***pilot*** *who* ***disobeyed orders*** *delivering food to priso -*

*Critical thinking is not my strong suit.*

Trudy breaks our heroes out of jail and they get shot at by Quaritch in the process. He’s so badass he doesn’t even need a rebreather. They end up escaping on a flying machine, but Grace gets shot despite the fact they never show her getting shot. It just got real. Trudy flies the avatar linker to a remote location and Jake, to regain the trust of the Na’vi…

tames Toruk.

*Toruk is the baddest cat in the sky. Nothing attacks him, so why would he ever look up?*
"Because I've been a Na'vi for maybe a few months so I can figure out how to do something that the Na'vi have only done 5 times in their 1,000+ year existence."

By doing this the Na’vi agree to heal Grace by performing a ritual to permanently bind her with her avatar body. It doesn’t work.

*She is with Eywa now*.
I feel about as sad as I did when she died in Alien 3.

This rouses some deep feelings in Jake which push him to rally the Na’vi against the humans (or “Sky People”). One of the things I actually like about this is how Jake tries to speak the Na’vi language but gives up only to have Tsu’tey translate for him. It’s funny to me because Jake is still a meathead by the end of the movie and it’s been made clear how difficult the language is for him. He’s not Kevin Costner, he’s still “Marine Man” who couldn’t care less about the formalities, so I think it works.

The problems become clear again when it’s revealed that there are apparently multiple Na’vi tribes around the planet. Neytiri’s tribe is just 1 of them. I wouldn’t have a problem with this normally because it’s a logical conclusion to draw, but look at the designs of these tribes.

They all look practically **the same** just given different accessories and war paint.

It’s at this point that I think it starts to become genuinely insulting to real life Native tribes. One thing you can certainly say about Native tribes is that no two are the same. They each have their own traditions, means of surviving, connection to the land around them, languages, spiritual practices, and stories to tell. You wouldn’t say Cherokee is Navajo, or Sioux is Comanche, or Lakota is Shoshone. Since the Na’vi are the Native stand-ins for this movie, that’s essentially what they’re saying with each of these tribes being the same. It’s not Pocahontas insulting, but it’s getting there.

[heaviest sigh that ever sighed] Anyway, with all of the Na’vi now on his side, Jake prays to Eywa for help in this battle.

*Our Great Mother does not take sides, Jake.*
It's funny because she's wrong.

At this point we’re officially in climax territory as we gear up for this final battle. One thing I will say is that despite this movie not being good, James Cameron does still know how to shoot a good action scene.

Now ***this*** is the same guy who made T2.

Quick, something remind me how unoriginal this movie is!

So Trudy dies, Tsu’tey dies, even Norm’s avatar dies (you don’t die if your avatar dies, you just wake up in your linker traumatized). All seems lost until, out of nowhere, Eywa decides to help by sending in animal backup. She could’ve sent in reinforcements before everyone died you know. Best. Deity. Ever. Also, it’s when your enemy gets a literal Goddess on their side that you should probably give up. Why’re you even trying at this point?

Quaritch gets pissed when Jake destroys his flying machine though and somehow thinks he can win this fight by himself. He’s so badass he doesn’t even care that his arm is on fire.

Eventually Quaritch gets cornered by Neytiri and her Cat Monster, but he’s so badass he pulls out a giant mecha knife.

He kills Neytiri’s Cat Monster and goes to kill her too until Jake saves her. Since Quaritch just-so-happened to come across Jake’s linker pod, he goes to kill his real body. Neytiri ends up saving him though and shoots Quaritch twice with the neurotoxin arrows. He’s so badass that he only seems mildly annoyed by the fact that he’s dead.

*What, so I'm dead and shit? This is gonna ruin my whole day*.
Also, I know this movie wants me to feel satisfied that he's dead, but no.
He was just a bland, stupid, one-noted character that will fade into obscurity like all the others.
...What was his name again?

Jake is saved, they send the humans back to Earth, Toruk is set free, Jake makes his last video log, and they perform the same ritual they did on Grace to Jake which permanently binds him to his avatar body.

Was it worth it?

…Well…maybe.

Let me just say: it’s awful. Truly -

IT’S AWFUL

- but I can see how people got into it. After all, the reason why we go to the movies is to experience different worlds, new planes of existence that feel like they really exist. While I have several problems with what this world is, I can understand being drawn in by how this world looks. It is very attractive and on the big screen is what makes it all the more beautiful to watch which is more than likely where that $2,923,706,026 box office figure came from.

When it was in theaters people likely weren’t watching this movie for whatever half-assed story they threw together, but more to experience the feeling of a different reality that they almost felt a part of themselves. Also, many of the criticisms I have are the same criticisms most other people have which makes me confident that most other people watch this movie for the reason I’m guessing.

Something I was worried about after looking at that huge box office return number was Hollywood using that as an excuse to pump out more lame stories with milquetoast characters and very little though. It seems that Avatar has left behind a different legacy. One that forces movies of today to strive to be visual marvels. That’s something Avatar definitely is: a spectacle. Every scene is practically gleaming with color and wonder, and it’s hard for me not to give props to the filmmakers for that aspect.

After viewing the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise there’s definitely a stark contrast between the dark and murky cinematography of those films compared to the bright and vibrant shots of this one. I honestly wouldn’t mind any of the shots from this movie being my desktop background. Especially this one:

So if you’re wanting to watch this movie for your weekend movie night, I’d say there are way better films to choose from. However, if I have to thank a film for giving us the polished cinematography of modern cinema, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thanks Avatar.

O to rate this movie…1/5 blue fursuits. Like I said, this movie still sucks, but even the beautiful shots can’t save it (unless they re-release this movie on IMAX). Dammit! I shouldn’t give them ideas. Unless you have a home theater with a 50 foot screen, don’t bother. Just show your appreciation for the visual culture it created by watching something that’s both visually appealing and complex in its writing.

(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)

(Each of them are owned entirely by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)

(I’m just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I don’t make them)

(Yet)

IT’S AWFUL

Let Me In

Willow