Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2010 20:21:16 GMT -5
On Tuesday, January 12th, I saw James Cameron's lastest blockbuster hit, Avatar. I saw it at the Bridgeport Regal Theater in Imax 3-D, to have the most enjoyable movie experience as possible. So I went in hoping that Avatar would take me to a whole new world and I was not even slightly disappointed.
Avatar has proven to be a highly entertaining flick and an artistic breakthrough with it's motion capture CGI animation. Not since Star Wars have movie-goers ever been brought to an alien world that looked so breathtakingly realistic. There is so much depth and detail to the world of Pandora, whole rainforests filled with alien plants and animals are brought to life right before our eyes. What makes it all even better is that Avatar was filmed in Hawaii, which gives the perfect background to set up Pandora's tropical environment.
The film was mostly, if not entirely, shot in 3-D to help make Pandora seem more alive. Most films primarily use 3-D as a gimmick, but Avatar uses it as a basis to make us feel like we are in Pandora. The fact that I saw this in Imax made it even more believabl that I was not in a movie theater but on Pandora. Not since The Lord of the Rings have I seen a film in theaters that blissfully took me away from reality and to a fantastic new world.
The premise of the film is about a paraplegic ex-marine named Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) who takes up his recently deceased brother's position in a military agenda. The agenda involves the military's intereste in mining a precious metal from Pandora that is worth a vast fortune on Earth. However, the Na'vi, Pandora's indigenous feline-like people, stand in the way of the agenda. So the military has gotten some scientists to make these biologically grown Na'vi bodies known as Avatars and have the consciousness of humans transferred to them. As Avatars they get in and infiltrate the Na'vi's society in hopes of getting them away from the ore, and Jake is assigned to be one such Avatar.
So we basically have our typical anti-imperialist movie, where the indigenous people are oppressed by the newcomers. Because of how this premise is similar to other films like Dances With Wolves and The Last Samurai, some have lauded this film as unoriginal and a rip-off other such films. While those folks do have a point, I still see Avatar as a separate film from those two, mainly for the fact that this movie is a "science fiction" film. Plus there are a few original aspects of this film that are noteworthy, such as: military imperialism taking place on another planet instead of another land, all of Pandora's wildlife (there were these canid creatures that reminded me of jackals), and the fact the Na'vi were aliens that were a primitive indigenous people instead of highly advanced technology wielders.
The film is also compared to District 9, another sci-fi movie from 2009 that I enjoy so much. Mainly for the fact that in both films the antagonists are humans and the protagonists are the aliens. The difference is that in District 9 the Prawns were forced to stay on Earth against their will by the humans, whereas in Avatar the humans were the alien invaders of the Na'vi's world. Regardless of how they may be like, they are both among my top favorite films for 2009.
On a final note, I deeply enjoyed how this is a film with a message, and not just pure entertainment or art. Without giving anything away, I will say that the lessons I learned from Avatar is that mankind has become disconnected from and far too dependant on technology. As well as that greed can corrupt us so much that it will cloud our judgment. While we have already heard similar environmental messages from such films like An Inconvient Truth and Princess Mononoke, it is quite something to hear from another perspective. Plus I felt like none of it was preachy nor cliche, but surprisingly deep and meaningful.
Overall, Avatar is a fantastic film and is a terrific start to Cameron's return to filmmaking. He waited many years to make this movie, for he wanted to have filmmaking technology be advance enough to bring Pandora to life, and it was well worth the wait! I highly recommend seeing this film in Imax 3-D if you can, but if you don't have an Imax or a theater that plays films in 3-D in your area, then a conventional 2-D will suffice.
10/10
