Avatar review

So over a decade after James Cameron blew the Oscars away with his epic story of romance in the face of doom in one of histories most memorable disasters, he follows up with a science fiction adventure, war story involving blue people. Was this really the best choice for him after such a massive achievement as "Titanic"? That's damn sure not for me to say. Cameron's work in the sci-fi genre has had echos well into our time. His designs, themes, style and technology has been used in everything from "Starship Troopers", "Halo" and "District 9" to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". He is the creator of Digital Domain, one of the best computer animating companies around. So him trumping up this whole 'movies will never be the same' business is pretty ballsy. I can't necessarily say movies will never be the same, but I can say that he's made a damn entertaining movie that does live up to his reputation and trademark style.

"Avatar" isn't the most original sci-fi movie to come along. Neither was Abrams' "Star Trek" and Jackon's "King Kong" and they were quite fantastic as well. What "Avatar" is, is Cameron's love of classic sci-fi adventures he read when he was younger (i.e. "Dune" and "John Carter of Mars"). What is pretty original and overall astounding is Pandora, the alien planet the film takes place on. It's not quite as gimmicky as Skull Island, but it's interesting in just how much eco-life was created for the film. It's great looking, but not really spacey. Cameron's inspiration for 90% of the creatures is based on deep water sea creatures that is his seen while diving. His thought is that as much as we sit down and try to think of how to make up creatures, Earth has dozens that are more bizarre and alien looking then whats in our imaginations.

Now we come to the Na'vi. Actually... lets first talk about the overall visuals. They're fucking fantastic. This is exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to look and style when it comes to CGI. The animation is far more detailed than any of the science fiction flicks this year and several action sequences using people falling, flying and what not look far less phony then what I've been seeing. This is aided by Cameron's strikingly non-gimmicky use of 3D. Sometimes it's in your face, but in the normal ways in which a good action film is made. The military designs are classic Cameron of "Aliens" and "Terminator", with huge flying machines with buttons and lights and tons of random shit, but the difference is that it all seems to have a purpose. There's something very matter of fact about the usage of his tech. The whole avatar program, led by Sigourney Weaver who plays the character like Ripley, had she become a doctor; is a simple brain connecting system.

Think what happens in "The Matrix" sort of. Sam Worthington's Jake Sulley is fun type of lead because he has a real motivation for coming into this project. He's a quick learner and he's got a mouth. He's fun to watch in human form or avatar form because of how fantasticly expressive Worthington is. At first he comes off a bit of a cardboard solider character, but after a while you get his true colors. On the flip side you've got Stephen Lang as the gung-ho Col. Quaritch. Quartich is a classic Cameron villian, the sense that he's ruthless, cunning and damn hard to kill. Then we have Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. Her job maybe was the best here because she had to be extremely expressive, emotional, had to learn a new language and fight. Saldana has been on a roll with a lot of high profile movies and she's been great jobs in them. She's well on her way to becoming a major name actress.

The backlash to this movie has been unworldly stupid. It's been like the whole Bond not Blond thing with Daniel Craig. The fact is the adventure movie genre is in pain and it's because of the lack of original ideas which is stemmed from the lack of respect those films are getting. With "Avatar" there is a hope that things might change. Scratch that, 2009 might change that. For the first time in a long time genre films like this one are getting major respect and even awards praise ("Avatar" has been nominated for Best Picture at the Golden Globes). It is a fantastic adventure film, fun and impressive from beginning to end and shows that Cameron can still make a great picture, even with being out of the game for so long.

"Avatar" **** out of ****