You need to understand the strength of my distaste towards Titanic to fully grasp my take on Avatar. James Cameron, for those not obsessed with movies, has not directed tons of movies. In fact, I would gander that most of you have seen at least half of the movies he has under his belt: The Abyss (just rewatched recently - good fun), Terminator 1 & 2, Aliens, True Lies (come on, so much fun!), and even Aliens of the Deep (IMAX documentary that we watch in school with our kids). And Titanic and Avatar, obviously. So I am not entirely against James Cameron's movies. In fact, I would highly recommend each one of these (from the first list) to pretty much anyone (except my mother who has a "strict" "not more than 5 dead people" rule). But I liked these movies before I really knew who James Cameron was and before the Titanic resentment set in. Since Titanic, I have had a vendetta out for James Cameron.
So when Avatar - the most expensive movie ever made - started popping up in articles in movie mags about a year or so ago, I wasn't sure what to think. Everyone loved Titanic because, boy, weren't those amazing special effects! Was this going to be another one of those movies where it is really mediocre but because he spent more money than anyone has EVER spent on a movie before, will everyone think it is amazing? When Avatar started receiving rather tepid reviews, I was a bit gleeful. It's horrible to find joy in someone else's potential downfall but, again, I am not over the whole Titanic thing and certainly did not want Avatar to feed into Cameron's already inflated ego (that's for another blog, but trust me, he has one *cough*Kingoftheworldoscarspeech*cough*). But I did want to see it. I mean, I'm still a movie person through and through and it was supposed to be visually amazing. So I went to see it last week with Gillian's cousin Kerenza and friend Dawn.
It was so much fun. I mean really a lot of fun to watch. Though 2 1/2 hours long, you don't feel it. This movie wrapped me up in the new world of Pandora and kept me fascinated the entire time. I have heard many reviews blast the movie for its simplistic and predictable plot. "It's Dances with Wolves on an alien planet." Quite true. In fact, the plot was so conventional that in the first 10 minutes you already know who is going to fall in love, who is going to "change sides", who is the bad guy, who is going to probably die, etc. Ultimately, I think this is one of the more brilliant things Cameron did with the movie - intentional or not. By keeping most, not all, but most of the movie fairly simple, the audience could really sink into this new world - so visually stunning that I wouldn't have wanted a complex super-plot marring my enjoyment of it. I even found myself thinking throughout the movie, "Oh, we're not at the end yet because XY and Z still need to happen and Bob from copying needs to do such and such and Lucy hasn't noticed this or that..." And it made me happy to be able to keep pace with the filmmakers like that. I have watched too many movies where I am working so hard to keep track of characters, plot twists, etc. that I miss out on movie part of the movie. You could not read this story in a book and see Pandora the way it is meant to look. Ugh...now I'm just gushing and repeating. Moving on...
**I realize I was mad at Titanic for being nothing more than a special effects beauty queen so this may sound a bit hypocritical but there was something magical about Avatar that Titanic just missed for me. **
As for Cameron, I am still amazed at the depth of his creativity. Very few people in the world would even dream up some of the things (whether military helicoptery things, 6-legged creatures of the forest, large blue people that you can control while laying in a pod) but even fewer would then have the skill to bring all of that together in a terribly realistic way. I can't believe the movie was almost 80% special effects. There's part of me that even wonders if this should be considered as Best Animated Feature because most of it is (though you wouldn't know to look at it).
Yet beyond this embarrassingly mushy review, it was not my favorite movie of the year. So far, that honor is reserved for District 9. I watched it on the plane ride back to Scotland on a 5 inch TV and it took me into its drama like no other film in 2009. (still need to see some like Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker though). Other favorites of the year include Up, Star Trek, and The Hangover (what a great victory for that movie last night - made my day). And despite my obvious Avatar enthusiasm, I was a little sad for Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker. This is probably the closest a woman has come to potentially winning Best Director Oscar and I'm so nervous that Cameron's Golden Globes win will hurt her chances. Sigh. This is what poor Annette Benning must feel like regarding Hilary Swank. The two years she would have been a shoe-in, Hilary Swank swooped in with amazing performances. So close...
I'm sure you'll hear from me come Oscar time but feel free to give your own two-cents here as well. I am not going to be offended for those who found Avatar less than thrilling but would love hear other opinions. I also apologize for those who wanted to know more about the movie in this breakdown - my brother throws a fit if anyone ever tells him anything about a movie that he is about to watch. So I am trying to respect (as much as you can in a review) the wishes of my readers to not divulge too much information. Feel free to call or email if you want a complete breakdown of plot, cast, etc. I'm always happy to oblige.
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