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I have a feeling it's going to be love it or hate it with AVATAR reactions but I don't really care because I loved it.
For those who are wondering, the film is neither Starship Troopers meets Fern Gully nor Dances with Smurfs. If you need a convenient comparison to hang you hat on, I'd say it was more along the lines of DUNE meets PRINCESS MONONOKE. Rap AVATAR for having a simple and predictable storyline if you want but it's in a large and varied company in that regard.
In terms of Cameron's oeuvre, AVATAR is most like THE ABYSS and like that film, I expect very few people to respond neutrally to the movie. You'll either sign onto the story or you won't. And like THE ABYSS, AVATAR represents such a huge technological step forward that the audience's wonder at the ability to create the images you are seeing overwhelms the impact of the story.
AVATAR is the most realistically rendered CGI I've ever seen, which also makes Avatar the most fully-realized fantasy environment I've ever seen. The jungles of Pandora are a delight to behold and the landscapes, while alien, worked together in a way that felt internally consistent. I believed in Pandora - at least as much as I believed in the Death Star.
As for the story itself, AVATAR isn't the best of Cameron's work. Zoe Saldana will likely not get the recognition she deserves for a performance that is fierce and carries beyond the technological mask laid over it. Sam Worthington provides an adequate hero-type and Sigourney Weaver shows up to be badass. But Saldana's performance should be career-making and hopefully AVATAR will serve as sharp prod to JJ Abrams to give this talented, sharp, intelligent young actor more to do in the next STAR TREK movie.
Depending on how you construe values of objective "good" and "bad" , AVATAR is not a good movie. The storyline lacks a depth - you could wish that Jake's motivations and interactions were a little less straightforward - that the fully-imagined and visually rich landscapes and cultures of Pandora do not quite make up for. The flip side of this is that AVATAR works best (and this movie does work) as a straight-up adventure story straight from your fourth-grade reader tales of Leatherstocking*. AVATAR is a cinematic Mustang, a big-engine hunk of Hollywood filmmaking that handles best on the straights but responsive enough that it won't spin out on the curves. AVATAR may not be a good movie but it's the most freaking awesome film I've ever seen.
ETA: *yes, this means exactly what you think it does, good and bad - I loved those stories as a kid. As an adult,I still love those stories I wish the hero had been native rather than white (and also a different story but I'm digressing). In the long term, that would have been cooler. But rather than knocking AVATAR for its painfully LAST OF THE MOHICANS/DUNE 'white boy goes native' story, I'm far more disappointed by how White the future is - I expect more from Cameron (shooting in New Zealand or not and, hello, last time I checked NZ was a multi-ethnic nation) than a near uniform blotting paper background cast.
For those who are wondering, the film is neither Starship Troopers meets Fern Gully nor Dances with Smurfs. If you need a convenient comparison to hang you hat on, I'd say it was more along the lines of DUNE meets PRINCESS MONONOKE. Rap AVATAR for having a simple and predictable storyline if you want but it's in a large and varied company in that regard.
In terms of Cameron's oeuvre, AVATAR is most like THE ABYSS and like that film, I expect very few people to respond neutrally to the movie. You'll either sign onto the story or you won't. And like THE ABYSS, AVATAR represents such a huge technological step forward that the audience's wonder at the ability to create the images you are seeing overwhelms the impact of the story.
AVATAR is the most realistically rendered CGI I've ever seen, which also makes Avatar the most fully-realized fantasy environment I've ever seen. The jungles of Pandora are a delight to behold and the landscapes, while alien, worked together in a way that felt internally consistent. I believed in Pandora - at least as much as I believed in the Death Star.
As for the story itself, AVATAR isn't the best of Cameron's work. Zoe Saldana will likely not get the recognition she deserves for a performance that is fierce and carries beyond the technological mask laid over it. Sam Worthington provides an adequate hero-type and Sigourney Weaver shows up to be badass. But Saldana's performance should be career-making and hopefully AVATAR will serve as sharp prod to JJ Abrams to give this talented, sharp, intelligent young actor more to do in the next STAR TREK movie.
Depending on how you construe values of objective "good" and "bad" , AVATAR is not a good movie. The storyline lacks a depth - you could wish that Jake's motivations and interactions were a little less straightforward - that the fully-imagined and visually rich landscapes and cultures of Pandora do not quite make up for. The flip side of this is that AVATAR works best (and this movie does work) as a straight-up adventure story straight from your fourth-grade reader tales of Leatherstocking*. AVATAR is a cinematic Mustang, a big-engine hunk of Hollywood filmmaking that handles best on the straights but responsive enough that it won't spin out on the curves. AVATAR may not be a good movie but it's the most freaking awesome film I've ever seen.
ETA: *yes, this means exactly what you think it does, good and bad - I loved those stories as a kid. As an adult,