Avatar film review: The future of filmmaking as we know it…

Finally, after a wait that seemed like centuries, the long fabled return of JC has taken place…in my lifetime.  In London.  At 00.30 at night.  I honestly didn’t think it would happen. Certainly not with Bill Bailey in attendance. But hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways.  So was it worth the wait?

The answer- breaking a million hater geek hearts- is Yes! Yes! Yes!

It was with a little trepidation that I sat down at the Imax in the middle of the night to watch the return of James Cameron. Firstly, this is a man who in my opinion has never put a foot wrong cinematically; from the good (Abyss), to the long (Titanic), to the only Arnie comedy not featuring child (sized) people (True Lies), to only using one of My Two Dads (Aliens).  And then of course, there’s T2. That film deserves its own sentence with no jokes.

Secondly, Cameron made his comeback with Avatar. A film that has been described as both a cinematic changer, the future of filmmaking as we know it…and Ferngully: The Live Action Movie, destined to be the worlds biggest flop.

The story concerns disabled ex-marine Jake Sully, entrusted with his deceased twin brothers’ avatar, which needs a genetic match to work, going to the planet Pandora and meeting the “locals”, who are interfering with the mining operation set up by the EVIL CORPORATION.  Once on the planet, Sully uses his avatar to roam freely through the dense alien forests, before getting lost, then found by Neytiri, a beautiful, female Na’vi; one of the ten foot tall, blue indigenous people of Pandora.  Before long, he’s fallen in love, joined the natives, and leads an insurrection against the EVIL CORPORATION.  So far, so predictable.  Let’s be honest, it’s Dances with Wolves.  We all know that.  We can guess what’s going to happen.  There are no huge surprises in the story; we know where it’s all going.  The difference is it’s Dances with Wolves directed by James Cameron.  So we get guys in big robot suits, we get tough ladies, we get action, we get a bad guy so cool he runs the risk of chewing all the scenery Cameron spent millions making. We also get a great twist on the Aliens mano a mano catfight.  I loved every minute of it.

The difference is not what happens, but how it happens.  Ever see two people fall in love? Great, you can see it again, only this time the people are big blue alien cat people.  Ever see bad guys lead a final strike then get their asses kicked by ewoks? Great, you can see it again, only this time the final strike involves destroying a tree with space helicopters guarded by dragons. LOTS of dragons.  Main bad guy get his comeuppance?  Yep…but what a bad guy, and what a comeuppance.  Hero learns life lessons?  Again yes, but it’s worth watching how he learns them, and why. Its not about the story, it’s what the story is about.  It’s about life, how everything living is connected.  Not wholly different to the concept of The Force from that other sci-fi film that took something old and made it seem new.  It’s Terminator 2’s last line expanded into an entire film, with Cameron’s techno fetish not on screen, but used to create the film itself, allowing his love of nature and humanity to permeate through, shocking those who chose to concentrate on the aliens and robots of his previous films. I personally enjoyed the innocence of the story, the sweetness of it; James Cameron’s hippy fantasy trip.

Although the story does nothing new on the surface, and you can see pretty much everything coming a mile off, what you do see is staggeringly beautiful at times. The floating mountain range, the wild Pandoran forest, the “sky people” gearing up for war against the natives, and the Na’vi themselves all lingering in the memory.  It’s going to take something great to amaze after visiting Pandora at night, and I don’t mean at 00:30 in London.  It’s hard not to think that in the world of big budget, special effect blockbuster filmmaking Avatar has changed everything. The Spielbergs, Jacksons, Bays and Emmerichs making these kinds of films will have to use the technology developed by Cameron, if only to match him, and the bar he’s set.  At no point do the Na’vi seem unbelievable, that Pandora isn’t real, that everything you’re seeing wasn’t caught on camera as it happened.  You’ll believe everything you see. Only a line of dialogue here and there sounds artificial.

I honestly think you’ll enjoy the film more with the right perspective.  People wanting a hardcore sci-fi movie along the lines of Cameron’s own Aliens might be disappointed.  Embrace Camerons fantasy adventure for what it is and you should have a great ride.  While others praise the effects but criticise the story and characters more harshly than I have, I feel that they’ve missed the point; you may have heard this story before, but you haven’t seen it.

And besides, when you walk out of the cinema, with or without Bill Bailey, you’re left feeling that the Na’vi were real. And at the end of the day isn’t that a sign of good writing, and of good characters?

Visit the official Avatar website here