Avatar

Avatar (2009)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribsi

Summing Up, Up Front - Avatar:

Avatar is a fantastical and phenominal visual experience -- there's no denying that, but the story is very derivative and somewhat thematic. Still, the overwhelming visual experience trumps any short comings of the script.

I have this feeling that seeing Avatar is like taking a recreational drug -- you have to get away from it to get some real perspective, but once you experience Avatar again you will come away with the same high. The stunning visual impact of Avatar is just so profound that the deficits of the script are completely ignored and everything is beautiful.

In case you haven't seen, Avatar tells the experience of a far-off world called Pandoa inhabited by a primitive alien race called the Na'vi. The Na'vi are ten foot tall humanoid species and live in a communal society with a deep connection to the planet including all the plants and animals. They also happen to have their base settlement sitting right on top of some of the most precious ore in the universe. This puts them at odds with some greedy corporate types which have hired a highly sophisticated mercenary army to protect the corporations interests on the planet.

Negotiations between the humans and the Nav'i have stalled as the aliens won't move and the humans are backing down on their goal of getting to the precious ore. A new scheme has been hatched by to create androids fashioned to to look like the Na'vi called Avatars. These Avatars operate on a principal in which humans make a connection to the android and experience the world through the body of the Avatar. The team sole goal is to convince the Na'vi to move and the team is led by the hard-nosed scientist, Dr. Grace Austine (Weaver).

Unfortunately, one of the Avatar team members is killed before the Avatars can be fully integrated with the Na'vi and the team is forced to draft the team member's twin brother to replace him as a new Avatar. Jake (Worthington) is a war vet who was injured and is now paralyzed. Having lost his legs, he finds the experience of regaining the ability to walk again in the Avatar body to be exhilarating.

Jake takes on his new "assignment" with great relish and quickly integrates with the Na'vi as he saved by Neytiri (Saldana) who happens the be the leader of the local Na'vi tribe. Jake's orders are to get the Na'vi to move, but with each successive encounter with the Na'vi and Neytiri, his affinity for these people and specifically Neytiri grows and his loyalties become divided.

While Jake and the Avatar team try to convince the Na'vi to move, the corporation slowly runs out of patience and decides that diplomacy is at an end and more forceful forms of persuasion are taken creating a deadly showdown where the Avatar team must take sides.

Again, the story takes second seat to the technology and while that usually ends up with disastrous results, in Avatar, the story has just enough substance that the movie is successful outside the wonderment of the technological achievement. Many elements of the story seem derivative of other plot lines, but director James Cameron makes them seem fresh in this fantastic new world.

Avatar is one of the movies that demands to be seen on the big screen and if you can experience it in 3D, that's all the better.