Avatar

There’s a scene in Barry Levinson’s Diner in which a man tells Daniel Stern he doesn’t like the new color TV sets. He says he watched Bonanza and “the Ponderosa looked fake.” Avatar, to me, looks fake.

I should say that it's Pandora that looked fake, for that is the setting of James Cameron's much-ballyhooed dozen-year follow-up to Titanic. I will say this, the man does do things on a large scale. Pandora is a moon that in the future Earthlings are hoping to mine for a mineral called unobtainium (unobtainium? Is this a contribution from Mel Brooks?) There is the sticky problem that Pandora is populated by large blue people called the Na'Vi. The business interests, led by Giovanni Ribisi (a copy of a character played by Paul Reiser in Cameron's Aliens) spouts typical heartless corporate-speak, defying the scientists (led by Sigourney Weaver) who want to study and negotiate with them. The security is led by a gung ho Marine colonel, Stephen Lang, who seems to have wandered over from Starship Troopers.

To study the Na'Vi, a technology has been developed where humans can use remote-controlled bodies that are a hybrid of human and Na'Vi DNA. Weaver has one that wears a Stanford sweatshirt (most of the Na'Vi go close to naked). One of the other intended avatar users is killed in a robbery, so his twin brother, Jake Sully, who shares the same DNA, is enlisted. He is played by Sam Worthington. A golden opportunity was missed in not casting a disabled actor as Sully. Sam Worthington is pretty much an uncharismatic hunk of meat, and since his character is a paraplegic who never has the use of his legs, why not use a real paraplegic? It would have been a newsworthy casting choice, and might have made it all a bit more poignant.

So what we have here is a liberal allegory against Western imperialism, whether it be on the plains of Dakota, the interior of Africa, or the ride paddies of Vietnam. Its heart is in the right place, as the villains are the military-industrial complex, but it’s ham-fisted and patronizing. The Na’Vi are depicted as some sort of combination of Middle Earth’s Elves, the Comanche, and natives in a Tarzan picture. They are noble savages, in touch with the land and creatures all around them (they literally link with the creatures they ride) and infantilized as so often exotic peoples are in films.

Worthington, who loves being in a body that has full use of its limbs, gets separated from the others and is taken in by the Na'Vi, who for some reason know he is a spy but don't kill him anyway. A female voiced by Zoe Saldana takes him under his wing, teaching him the ways of the indigenous. This is all an echo of Dances With Wolves, and any of a number of other films that have been sympathetic to Amerindians (Little Big Man also comes to mind). Since Worthington's body is actually back at the Earthling base (thus he really can't "die" when he's in his avatar, which makes some of the perilous scenes lose their tension) he conspires with Lang and gives him military intelligence. Soon enough, of course, he comes to love Saldana and the Na'Vi ways, and turns against his own kind, leading the Na'Vi in a rebellion.

I have news for James Cameron–in the instances where aboriginal people have defeated Western interlopers decisively–the Little Bighorn, Dien Bien Phu, the Battle of Hattin–there wasn’t a white expatriate who leads them–they did it all by themselves. The film's overt suggestion is that without Worthington's help, they would be helpless to fight for their existence. Furthermore, the voice-actors of the Na'Vi are minorities--Saldana, Wes Studi, CCH Pounder, which hammers home the parallels with the struggle of indigenous people on Earth. Studi, a fine actor, doesn't get a chance to play characters who aren't Indians often, and then when he gets a voice-actor job he's playing essentially a wild Indian.

Now, as to the technology. I'm not one of these fanboys who tremble with anticipation at every advancement in special effects. I can be gripped by a film, like Diner, that has nothing more fancy than a bunch of guys sitting around a diner talking about nothing. Avatar supposedly has the most advanced use of this, that and the other ever, and cost a quarter-billion dollars to make. All I can say is that if this is the future of motion pictures, get me a time machine, because I want to go back in time.

I saw the 2-D version. I intended to see the IMAX 3-D version, and even though I got to the theater almost an hour ahead of time, it was sold out (I had intended to see it today, but we’re getting hit with a snowstorm and I might be housebound). I had already had my dinner at Burger King and didn’t want to go home or wait three hours for the next show, so I went into the 2-D version. I don’t know how the 3-D looks, and I never will, but I can counsel against seeing the 2-D version, because it looks terrible.

This may be because the theater didn’t show it properly–the images frequently flickered, as if the bulb wasn’t bright enough, and several times the focus was off. It was as if they showed the 3-D print and didn’t give us the glasses. That’s the problem with state-of-the-art technology–we all can’t see the movie at the Arclight, so we’re at the mercy of twelve-dollar-an-hour projectionists. That’s why I prefer films where the drama exists with a few characters sitting in a normal setting talking (like Diner, for example).

So anyway, the images didn’t impress me. It looked like, as another critic points out, an aquarium screen-saver. I liked the sense of flight when the Na’Vi are on the winged creatures, and I give credit for Cameron creating a complete world, with a menagerie of exotic creatures and a vertiginous forested-world, but that's not enough to sustain the dramatic tension. The predictable showdown between Worthington and Lang has moments of nice action, but it all seemed kind of hollow.

There are also numerous plot holes that can be fodder for a spirited game of "Wait a minute, what about..." that can be played with friends after seeing the film. Marco Trevisiol of Gone Elsewhere points out a problem with the character of Michelle Rodriguez, a Marine pilot who switches sides without being disciplined by her commanding officer. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's also Cameron's legendary clumsiness with dialogue. I suppose its his massive ego that has prevented him with working with a writer who has facility with language, but even Noel Coward couldn't have helped Avatar.

This film is getting ecstatic reviews from all quarters, and most assuredly will get a nomination for Best Picture Oscar. I heartily disagree.