Having avoided all the reviews and advertising leading up to Avatar’s release, I managed to see it without preconception. I was aware of it being one of the most expensive films ever made - I don’t live under a floating rock - but I had studiously avoided all the rest of the hype. Anyway, the “most expensive” tag doesn’t sway me either way. If you are investing the money well (smashing cars through shopping centres for The Blues Brothers, for instance) go with my blessing.
So - here’s a review of Avatar by someone who doesn’t know what the consensus of opinion is on the subject. I’ll be interested to see where I fit on the spectrum.
Avatar is the first 3D film I have seen since 1980 when I saw The House of Wax. Made in 1953, it was re-released in the 80s I presume to tackle a worldwide 3D-cardboard-glasses glut. It was the type of film that makes you glad that smell-o-vision didn’t take off, because what leapt off the screen at you was a pure bucket of shite.
The first thing you notice when you go to the 3D version of Avatar is that the glasses are much better now. I liked mine so much I kept them.
(Actually, a friend of a friend was there and he was wearing shoes that have individual toes. Sort of like feet gloves. When I happened to look down at them with my 3D glasses on, I assumed that the glasses had some mild x-ray feature and I was seeing slightly into his shoes. Turns out, the glasses only have a temporal vision thing going on, because looking at the shoes again, I could see exactly how long that trend was going to last.)
So, now that the technology is all taken care of, down to the movie.
Wikipedia says the script treatment and surrounding stuff was in development from 1994. Ho-lly-shit. I hope that’s not right. Fifteen freakin’ years to pump that out? You have got to be kidding me.
I won’t go into detail to avoid plot spoilers, but every single plot point is telegraphed so obviously that I saw them coming while I was in line for popcorn. (And I didn’t even have the special specs on at that time.)
I am a discerning Sci-Fi consumer. Ok, I’m total fussbudget of a Sci-Fi consumer. But I find that if the main premise is slightly plausible, I have an easier time putting the rest of my disbelief in suspenders. The film looks fantastic, but too often they’ve dumbed it down to appeal to the largest possible audience… and I don’t think it’s necessary.
The film is racist. The noble savages are sooooooo African or Native American, it’s embarrassing, but I can look past that.
It’s essentially the world’s most expensive Cowboys and Indians film, but I can look past that.
Floating mountains and unobtanium do not make sense but I can look past that.
I can even look past the fact that we have flown interstellar distances to meet aliens who unaccountably wear bikinis, kiss like Earthlings and have knees that work like ours.
But I can’t look past all those things all the time. It’s sloppy and I would’ve thought that with the development budget and time, they could have hired a decent Sci-Fi writer to iron all these things out.
You’ve got time to ponder them, too. I want to introduce a new unit of measurement. I will call it the ‘Cameron‘. It can be used in the following way.
“So how was the flight in from London?”
“Oh man. It was looooong. It was a total Cameron.”
He needs to walk away from a project every now and then and let some editors do their work. (I waited two hours for that guy to fall onto the propeller in Titanic) What he is indulging in is ego-maniacal. Nobody should be allowed to hog your attention for that amount of time.
So with that criticism ringing in my own ears, I’ll sign off with this.
It is lush. It is unbelievably lush. It looks a bundle. It is really fun to throw yourself into and… and… just watch. The design is superb. The animation is flawless. You stop seeing the CG and that’s a good thing because you need all that gorgeousness to distract you from the crap bits. Despite the gaping holes, the treatment of the audience’s intelligence as pond slime, the crushingly obvious pivot points, the script by four-year-olds and characterisation by numbers, it’s really a lot of fun and I reckon you should go and see it.
I give it six and a half giant, good looking smurfs out of ten.
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