I would have liked to have seen Disney’s The Princess and the Frog this week.
I found it interesting that Disney would go to the lengths of producing a feature-length, classically animated film just of the sake of diversifying the line-up of the highly profitable Disney Princess merchandise line. Really, though, isn’t that the only reason they keep making Transformers movies? For the merchandise?
Instead, I saw that other (mostly) animated feature which is bound to spawn an endless number of action figures, book bags, and video games: James Cameron’s long-awaited Avatar.
What first vexed me about this movie was who, exactly, were the long-awaiting ones who anticipated this movie so rabidly?
Given, Cameron has directed some pretty important films in the past, including Terminator 1 & 2 and Titanic. Still, the buzz around the movie is approaching dangerous levels, and the claims of it changing cinema forever are a tad overblown.
I will say, though, for a live action/CGI hybrid (which I generally loathe…fancy cartoons are still cartoons,) Avatar is one of the most original films I’ve seen all year; a fantasy of epic scope.
Cameron and company have created an entirely new world: that of the Earth-like moon Pandora. Humans, in the employ of a massive mining corporation, have invaded Pandora in order to harvest a valuable mineral called “unobtanium”. Unfortunately for the miners and their privately contracted mercenaries, Pandora is also home to the Na’vi- 8-foot, blue-skinned humanoids deemed primitive by the Earthlings. The Na’vi aren’t exactly thrilled by the idea of their home world becoming a strip mine.
In an effort to smooth over matters diplomatically, scientists led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) have developed the Avatar program, which injects a human’s conscious mind into a genetically engineered Na’vi body (The Na’vi are more likely to interact positively with a fellow Na’vi as opposed to a human).
Enter Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former marine turned Avatar. After falling for a Na’vi princess (Zoe Saldaña), Sully starts to question his allegiance to the human invaders.
It goes without saying that Avatar has some gnarly action sequences, but the best bits involve the hashing out of the Na’vi society, particularly by Saldaña’s character, Neytiri. Her animal-like movements, hissing rebukes, rolling-eyes, and mournful sobs make for one of the most compelling and hypnotic film performances since Johnny Depp first played Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Add to that a completely original, working Na’vi language and a plethora of trippy Pandorian fauna, not to mention brand new camera technology developed specifically for this film. Avatar has more creativity and thought behind it than anything that’s been released in a long time. .
It’s hard to deny the social implications behind Avatar as well. Cameron even goes so far as to have his dastardly humans use contemporary terms like “shock and awe” and “pre-emptive strike” in order to draw comparisons between the fantasy world of Pandora and the social reality of today’s world stage.
Avatar: Come for the half-naked blue women, stay for the allegorical depiction of neo-colonialism.
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Questions? Comments? Email Chet Greason at popcornucopia@gmail.com.