Also, there's nothing to be said about it that hasn't already been said. Cause... you know, just about everyone has seen it and it'll continue to make money until it reaches Titanic-box office proportions, which at that point will hopefully die down once people realize that the top two moneymakers of all time belong to James Cameron.
Who's OK, I suppose. But he's no... *insert cooler director here*.
However, it's really no surprise that it's making so much moolah, as it caters to the average moviegoer's desires: cool special effects, intense action scenes, clearly defined heroes and villains, hot blue on blue action... you know, that sort of thing (I really don't know what people really want... I'm just mentioning the "average moviegoer" so I can then prove why I'm better than them.) And it's quite clear that a lot of time was spent in making the movie, as a lot of the sequences are quite jaw dropping. Every time Sully and Neytiri run through the forest in the middle of the night I'm totally ignoring everything else to enjoy all the neon plant glory. And I was kind of enjoying the final battle, even though I wasn't necessarily "cheering" for anyone.
Great, right? Lots of effort in making this pretty and crap. However, the effort in elevating the script beyond banal, boring and stereotypical=not so much.
This is where I take a random shift and start talking about my favorite blockbuster of the year, that being "Star Trek." Of course, I'm not at all a Star Trek fan (a... Trekker, as the "hip" and "in-the-know" people refer to them as), but yet I've watched the movie three times and every time it was entertaining, thrilling and a joy to watch. The way in which this was accomplished was quite simple, as it just took pretty visuals, a wonderful score and a small (yet totally needed) sense of humor and wonder to make any failures seem unimportant.
The main baddie in Star Trek? He's not all that interesting. I mean, he's got a decent motivation for wanting to kill people and crap, but it's not friggin' "Bicycle Thieves" in trying to get you to understand its characters' poor decisions. It's your typical bad guy, and "Star Trek" gets away with it because it's fun and not trying to be too serious.
This is my problem with Avatar. I mean, the native stereotypes the Na'vi inhabits is bad and what not, but really my ambivalence boils down to the fact that the film's antagonists are just huge stereotypes and the film isn't able to get away with it.
So basically the main bad guys want to kill off the Na'vis because they've got resources they want. Oh man, it's like as if Cameron wanted to somehow, make some sort of connection to some small little war going on... I really can't quite place my finger on which one, though. It's as if he's saying "going to war and killing people for natural resources is BAD".... and if so, it's truly a landmark in anti-war discourse.
I get that the film is obviously designed for mass consumption, so making the film's baddies (I really can't remember the general dude's name... we'll just call him Bush, though) nuanced and complex characters with well-reasoned (if ultimately misplaced) reasons for what they do might dillute the messages the film wants to convey. But come on, Bush is just a broad cartoon that a 3rd grader would end up writing. He's just a bad person, killing off all these blue people because obviously his real life counterpart would want to rack up as many kills in order to get his hands on precious moolah. And I don't care what you think about the guy, but making the stand-in for Bush this one dimensional makes for weak storytelling and a weak critique.
For example, here's a scene that represents what's so frustrating about the movie to me, paraphrased to a large degree:
Bad guy: So why shouldn't we just take Signourney Weaver: *goes into long, scientific dialogue about how beautiful, complex and wonderful the Na'vi life and their relationship with nature is, thus making it impossible for anyone to think ill towards them or wish them harm in ay way, shape or form* Bad guy: ....f*** it, let's bomb them anyway.
Perhaps this would be OK if other certain story elements picked up the slack. You know, characters cracking a joke or two--making them feel somewhat human (or human-esque, I suppose... in the case of the Na'vis). Unfortunately, the rest of the story seems so wooden and calculated that any sort of joy or magic derived from being transported this lovely expansive world gets pretty much negated. The main example coming to mind is the whole "I see you" crap that is so obviously calculated and designed to top the AFI "114 Years, 114 Quotes" list they'll inevitably put out. To put it simply, it's annoying. Plus, it seems that the only way the characters are allowed to show any color is to have them cuss at critical intervals, instead of... you know, writing engaging dialogue.
I don't want to say that everything is a failure. The whole twist on the usual "humans=good, aliens=bad" is fresh enough, even though in the end it's a human that's leading the way for the aliens.
And I'm glad that I saw it, and such, if not for the mere fact that it's THE event at the moment and will rack up the Oscars for combining technical virtuosity with contemporary relevance.
But it's going to age like crap.
RATING:
One thing that Avatar has going for it that Titanic didn't... the sequels waiting in the wings. Cause you know they're going to milk this for as much as it's worth.
ReplyDeleteThe Titanic sequel on YouTube would be better, though. Although I'd have Rose get on another boat, meet Jack's twin brother, and have that boat sink as well. It'd be certified gold.