James Cameron is cool. It had to be said. He managed to make a movie about aliens on a distant planet with a mannish female main character a success. If that’s not awesome I don’t know what is.
Avatar is Cameron’s latest science-fiction film and it’s just as good as anything he’s done before. In terms of coolness Avatar kicks ass, and I mean that in an Arnold Schwarzenegger talking in a crazy accent while shooting a rocket launcher in the air way. It revolves around a paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who controls a bio-engineered body of a Na’vi person (a native on the planet Pandora) in order to gain the trust of the locals. It wouldn’t make sense to tell you anything more as that would ruin the cool, but somewhat predictable plot.
What I can tell you about Avatar is that it’s pretty intense; I hate the excessive use of CGI in films because at the end of the day it loses the human appeal that cinema has. But, Avatar pulls it off; I haven’t been so excited about a huge, odd-coloured hero since Shrek. The giant blue Na’vi people are a cross between hippies and hunters, they roam around being peaceful, doing weird shit with their hair, living in an enormous tree, talking to shrubbery and painting their faces. In other words they live the dream of most Earth Dance attendees. Humans, on they other hand are ruining the planet, mining a very rare mineral called Unobtanium (classic name) and destroying all in their path in order to make a quick buck. Ultimately, a huge, inevitable battle happens, and it’s missile-launching helicopter-things versus blue monkeys with sticks and stones on giant birds.
The characters are stereotyped but work well in the context of the film. Steven Lang plays the ultimate bad dude; Colonel Very-angry-at-the-planet-for-giving-him-a-sexy-facial-scar who pretty much tries to destroy all in his path because his grandchildren refuse to visit. Dr Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) is an idealistic botanist desperate for some Na’vi ass because she has no mates on Earth.
Avatar is good, everybody should watch it, and while it can get overwhelming and confusing, because to me all blue people look the same, the last twenty minutes is a pretty hectic, kick ass session that’ll satisfy anybody. The voice acting is good, it’s visually brilliant, watch it.
James ‘the lover of blue primates’ Brown
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