Lame story line notwithstanding, Avatar lives up to hype

All the hype and heated Internet speculation over James Cameron’s Avatar are over and the questions have been answered. Are the special effects as remarkable as they say they are? Yes. Is Avatar worth seeing? Yes. Will it change cinema forever? No. Cameron has succeeded in creating a lush and breathtaking world with Pandora, the planet on which the film’s story takes place. An entire ecosystem has been developed and one feels the film only covers the tip of the iceberg. Pandora’s alien, yet familiar wildlife and dense rain forest landscaping is wholly immersive and just as scenic as any other untouched wilderness. 

This is really where Avatar’s wow factor lies. The advanced mo-cap developed by Cameron and Weta Digital for several years has paid off in spades. The creatures and the Na’vi (Pandora’s natives) look almost photo real and are some of the most expressive CGI we’ve seen yet. This really helps bring Cameron’s Sci-Fi/ fantasy playground of Pandora to life. You may even forget that the dense forests and odd creatures are digital images.

But all these stunning images would be for naught without the spine of a good story. Cameron doesn’t have as much success here. There’s nothing wrong with the story being told in Avatar. It’s just very familiar and its told in a very familiar way. We follow physically-disabled marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who comes to Pandora to become a part of a military mining project. Pandora has an incredibly valuable metal under its soil. Problem is, there is a tribe of indigenous beings called the Na’vi and they have made their homes over the richest deposits of said metal. In an effort to better understand the Na’vi, the military is funding a project where researchers use Avatars to explore the harsh and dangerous jungles and people of Pandora. Avatars are beings created by splicing human and Na’vi. They are controlled remotely by the operators via mental link up. This program is lead by Doctor Grace Augustine (played by a warming Sigourney Weaver). Jake quickly takes to his new body, relishing being able to use “his” legs again.

It doesn’t take Jake long before he gets into trouble and is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) a proud, female Na’vi warrior. When Jake makes this connection with the ten- foot tall blue natives, both the military and Doctor Augustine scramble to get Jake on their side. As he learns to live among the Na’vi Jake slowly begins to fall in love with the exotic land and the simple living of the Na’vi. There are no surprises here, Jake grows to love Pandora and its people and it’s no surprise when we discover that the military is hardly interesting in a diplomatic solution. This adventure takes its time to build up laying all the cards on the table in grand finale of truly epic scale. It ‘s the classic conflict between man and its destructive nature and the life of being one with it.

Again nothing new being told here but that doesn’t hurt the film in any way; it just could have been revolutionary had they tried to weave the tale a different way. The acting from the whole cast is solid. Some performances stand out, Zoe Saldana is fascinating and fierce as Nytiri and Stephen Lang plays Colonel Miles Quaritch with all the vinegar of a grizzled, emotionless veteran.

Cameron has really created a world all his own here. Pandora and its natives are a feat of imagination right up there with The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The story’s a familiar one and takes a bit too long to be told but the world in which it plays makes up for it. Avatar is an experience you should have and have on the big screen.

Running Time: 2 hours 42 mins.         

Rated: PG-13