Originally written and posted on January 4, 2010.

Avatar

Please note that this review is intended for people who have already seen the movie and are looking for additional insights. There will be spoilers, unlabeled, and it assumes a familiarity with the subject. Read at this discretion.

“I’m king of the world!”

James Cameron, upon receiving the Oscar for Best Director at the 70th Academy Awards ceremony in 1997, said these very words in reference to his groundbreaking film Titanic, the film which gave him that honour. In the present day twelve years later, with the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony on the horizon in early March of 2010, one can’t help but wonder if we’ll hear James Cameron say these words again, albeit slightly tweaked to include the word “still.” With Avatar, another stellar worldwide success that also happens to be a technical marvel with a solid narrative, it’s certainly possible. The king has returned to reclaim his throne and at the same time show every blockbuster filmmaker from Bay to Zemeckis exactly how to do their job.

On the whole, Avatar is a very neat (in the sense that it is quite orderly and efficient) and very traditional movie. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is marine corporal who has lost the use of his legs and is admitted into a special program on a distant moon called Pandora, the purpose of which is to create human/Na’vi hybrids for the sake of diplomacy with an obstinate indigenous population that refuse to be evicted by avaricious military men and industrialists. Initially tasked with infiltrating and sabotaging the stubborn tribe by the war hungry Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Jake defects and leads a revolt with his new Na’vi girlfriend, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and her tribesmen at his side.

Avatar is divided into three separate acts with distinct transition phases between them that aren’t overly protracted and disruptive. The first act establishes the rudiments of Pandora, its current state of affairs, and the influential characters of both the native inhabitants and the human interlopers. The second act is as thorough an examination of a cinematic science fiction world’s ecology as has arisen since The Lord of the Rings. The third act is the climactic showdown between the two irreconcilable forces to which the characterization of the first two sections has been leading up. The first transition sequence between acts one and two is the depiction of Jake’s first night alone in the dense jungle of Pandora. The second transition sequence is the initial attack by the humans on the Na’vi’s colony.

Many of the criticisms Avatar has received appear to be from people who became disconnected from Cameron’s universe during the very leisurely pace of the second act, the general attitude being that either you’re on board or you’re not by the time the Na’vi are revealed to possess fibre optic hair. Immersion can be a fickle thing, and anything from refusal to accept certain truths of Cameron’s world to flimsy 3D glasses can shatter the illusion and break the deal for obstinate individuals. I myself was taken in the moment Jake’s Avatar massaged the fresh Pandora soil with a new working pair of feet, the audience quantum leaping into Pandora in much the same way.

For some people, however, this is as far as they’re willing to get. Floating mountains cascading water from their cores and jungle beds illuminating with every step in the middle of the night effectively alienating such people, causing questions of “why?” instead of exclamations of “wow!” This is a rather petty complaint, in my opinion, especially when such people claim that the movie glosses over necessary details in favour of an ironical expedience in an epic proportion.

Mystery is exciting and explanation is boring. Just because Avatar would rather project unbridled spectacle instead of dwelling on the nuances of bioluminescence doesn’t make the film unintelligent and the astute individual demanding reason superior. What is necessary to know is told while what is unnecessary is left to imagination. Correct me if I’m wrong, but District 9 never featured a lecture series on the reverse engineering of hyper advanced alien technology and Star Trek didn’t have much patience to explain what Red Matter was all about. For this reason, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to excuse Avatar from choosing not to tell us why there’s a floating mountain range. “Why do the Na’vi have omniscient hair extensions,” you ask? “So that they can commune with nature,” replies Avatar. “And don’t worry about asking for a demonstration,” continues Avatar, “as I’ve already arranged for this premier expedition through Pandora to pass through an indigenous technicolour dragon’s nest near the summit of the floating Mt. Everest.” Who says elucidation and excitement can’t go hand in hand?

There’s more to this extended second act than just a thinly veiled flaunting of technology through a tour of Pandora’s wilderness, though. While it would be remiss of me to say that every second spent with Jake, Neytiri, and the Na’vi characterizes, certainly every sequence does. Avatar creates the impression that these creatures that don’t exist and never will (at least as far as humanity is concerned) have their own unique language, with the additional suggestion that there are distinct dialects between tribes. There’s also a sense of ritual and ceremony, a somewhat chieftain administrative structure within the tribes, and even a mythology regarding the most powerful flying beast in the sky. There’s more invention in the Na’vi than champions of the “Dances with Smurfs” argument would have you believe. I would even say that the characterization of the Na’vi as a whole is as rich as a 2h40m film could possibly allow, especially considering how this is a completely unique science fiction universe with no other popular direct sources or exploits on other media from which to draw. Virtually every superhero movie and action/adventure/science fiction blockbuster of the last decade has a rich history from which to establish a film franchise; Cameron’s started from scratch.

Because the intent is to rally the audience behind an entire (fictional) culture and not just a motley handful of leading figures, the development of the main characters isn’t necessarily a significant demand. Think of it as a deliberate or purposeful thinning. Jake’s role as the double agent initially infiltrating the Na’vi before switching teams assures him the most pronounced arc, predictable as it may be thanks to Avatar’s heart being a story well told. Neytiri herself is the second deepest, though admittedly not that much deeper than the rest of her peers as her only additional layer stems from the internal miasma resulting from the clash of betrayal and deception with duty (again, predictable).

The remaining players, Augustine, Quaritch, and Parker, are completely immutable, their only real job being to thicken the proceedings with barbed exchanges and a humourous well timed line here and there. They’re all rigid archetypes of the egghead, warmonger, and pen-pusher (respectively), but it doesn’t make their portrayals any less exceptional and effective. Sigourney Weaver does well as the passionate ecologist with a hard edge and smoking habit, and Stephen Lang’s relentless aggressiveness and gargantuan Patton-esque ego strikes that perfect balance of charming ruthlessness. Giovanni Ribisi, however, is too underused for his character’s conniving to impart any consequence within the film, let alone any lasting image after the fact. He does nothing beyond occasionally express impatience for diplomatic methods and coin the word “unobtainium.”

The final character of note is Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy, a fighter pilot for the marines who feels compelled to defend the Na’vi when certain realities of Quaritch’s campaign become more than what she signed up for. She essentially follows the Ellen Ripley/Sarah Connor tradition of strong female leads in science fiction, except that she’s not exactly central to the proceedings, nor is she ever a particularly overpowering presence in the face of her male peers. All she ever really does is help the protagonists escape imprisonment and deliver a few pot shots against the big bad in the final battle before being utterly immolated.

Strangely, however, it’s because of this relatively minor character that an additional layer of Avatar is revealed to the audience. Certainly the political allegory isn’t exactly subtle, the anti-imperialist/pro-ecology streak being omnipresent from beginning to end, yet Trudy’s actions make Quaritch’s deliberate misrepresentation of the state of affairs on Pandora entirely justifiable. I’ve spoken with many people who claimed that the “we will fight terror with terror line” delivered by Quaritch in a rousing speech to a new batch of troops struck a false chord, as did many other scenarios where the word “terror” and any of its deviations were used. The fact is that Quaritch needed to spin the truth lest another mutinous action like Trudy’s abetment of his opposition occur. Whether or not the Na’vi are the most virtuous and docile alien tribe in existence or a pack of vicious and threatening savages is largely irrelevant, and such evidence to confidently suggest either conclusion is superfluous. Quaritch wasn’t convinced of his men’s loyalty, so he needed to engineer doubtless truths that commit them behind him. This completes the characterization of Quaritch’s brutality and the outpost of apparent human sheep on Pandora. Now all that’s left is for the two sides to do battle.

And fight they do. The marines steamroll through the jungle with their full air force in tow and a sweeping net of marines and mech suits on the ground, while the Na’vi patiently wait for the opportunity to make the strongest first strike possible, raining death on vibrant dragon from above supported by a charge on alien horseback. This is the most memorable action sequence of the year, stunningly rendered, visceral, and satisfying. The majority of the action takes place in the air where Pandora dragons pounce on unsuspecting human flyers and violently hurl them into rock faces as their pilots immediately strike down any exposed human soldier. There are so many moments of fantastic action splendour that detractors of the first two thirds should feel compelled to repent for their doubting of Cameron’s unparalleled technique. The 3D is so effortless that you could very well catch the teeth forcibly expelled from a soldier’s mouth by the nock of a Na’vi bow. Is it even possible to invest $16 better?

Yet for all the love and glowing adoration I have of this movie, I cannot in good conscience posit that it is entirely infallible. I do have complaints, but these may as well just be hairline fractures on the Colossus of Rhodes for how insignificant they are. The first is regarding the initial sketch of Jake Sully and his transformation from generic macho marine to humbled prince of the indigenous population seemingly overnight (well, to be fair it was over the course of three months). The human Jake we’re first introduced to appears to have been made modest thanks to the loss of his legs, but such humility evaporates the second after his first test drive in his Avatar. He’s once again just a grunt with a gun, overeager to spray bullets shouting “yeah, bitch, who’s your daddy now? Oorah!” Certainly it makes the before/after contrast more striking, but it still feels like a slight miscalculation. The second is with regards to the ceremony that occurs when the Na’vi attempt to transfer Augustine’s essence from her mortally wounded body to her Avatar. The concept is certainly novel, curious, and interesting, but the rhythmically chanting and waving bodies is something more easily equated with yoga than spirituality in my opinion. And finally, the music is somewhat underwhelming. I didn’t find Horner’s score to be particularly memorable, and even now I’m struggling to recall a familiar melody from the experience. On a side not, however, the rest of the sound design is superb. The mammoth IMAX sound system that floods the ear with audio from all trajectories creates a thick and deep ambient soundscape, especially during Jake’s lonely adventure through the darkened wilderness.

People keen to disparage Avatar at any opportunity will surely realize that I’ve neglected to write about the core story as a detriment, or even at any notable length up until this point in the review. The simple reason for this is that there’s nothing wrong with it. Avatar is far more about visual excitement than narrative, which is something that could be easily said for a lot of the monstrous entertainment hits in recent memory. For this reason, a focused and coherent story is far more useful than one that tries something too ambitious and consequently gets bogged down in its own indulgences and peculiarities. Star Trek, for example, tried to create a fresh narrative and failed as each new plot point seemed to create a brand new set of anomalies and contradictions that pulled some viewers out of the experience instead of further in. Both movies are technically impressive in scope, flair, and special effects, but the difference is that you can enjoy Avatar on a level of pure spectacle thanks to a safe story whereas Star Trek’s narrative inconsistencies could keep a person at a distance for the whole duration.

The best action/adventure movies use a simple story well told as a hook to lure people in while the thrilling world does the rest of the work. This doesn’t mean that the story is entirely without consequence and that it can be altogether omitted. If nothing else, the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen debacle at least serves to remind us that stories, at their most basic level of utility, are necessary for framing a movie. Not only is that what Avatar’s story needed to do; that’s what Star Trek and every other such movie that only got halfway to its goal needed to do. The other narrative quibbles, such as alleged derivativeness at best and flat out plagiarism at worst, do nothing to lessen the experience as far as I’m concerned. I can’t think of a better movie released in 2009 that is more thrilling, captivating, exiting, or imaginative, than Avatar. This is the best movie of 2009, one of the best movies of the decade, and one of the best movies I have ever seen.