Review of Avatar (2009) by Filipeneto — 04 Dec 2020

I confess that this film never really caught my eye until I read about it. I still remember when it was in theaters more than ten years ago. More recently, I decided to see it. The film was a success, as we all know, and I find it surprising that I didn't have the right to any sequels.

The script takes place in a distant future, when humans have ruined the Earth but are colonizing and exploring other planets like Pandora, where Jake Sully, a veteran of the Marines, is going after being recruited by a scientific program. Pandora has a rare and valuable ore that humans want, but it also allows the planet to have an exuberant and unusual biological life. It happens to be inhabited by natives called Naavi (who look like huge blue humans with a long tail), and they are determined to protect their world from the greed of the Terran's. Sully joins the Avatar Program, which allows him to remotely control the body of a Naavi. If the program allows humans to live and learn from them (as its director, scientist Dr. Grace, wants), it also turns them into Trojan horses (as Colonel Miles, commander of the military forces in Pandora, wishes). This will put Sully in a conflict of loyalties while allowing him to see how the natives are connected to their world and are inseparable from it.

The plot raises a number of pertinent questions. We can, for example, reflect on the way we have lived and managed our planet, on the superiority with which we see who is different from us, on how we despise the environment or deliberately harm it by greed, on our passion for war instead of peaceful conflict resolution or even about how technological and medical advances do not reach everyone and are put at the service of some wealthy people instead of being available to all. It is a script that makes you think and could be seen in many ways. Unfortunately, the story built on these premises is not so good. There is good material and the way Sully is divided in his loyalty as he lives with the natives is the backbone of the whole thing, but everything else is quite predictable and one-dimensional, and sometimes it sounds bad: humans are treated in a simplistic way and turned into despicable creatures, while the Naavi are idealized to the fullest. The old story of "good guys and bad guys".

Sam Worthington shows all his talent in a demanding and likeable character. He plays well with Zoe Saldaña, his alien romantic couple. The actress is excellent and was having a good time in her career then. I also liked the work of Sigourney Weaver, in the role of a strong, bossy and grumpy scientist, who is guided by her ideals even if it means facing the military. But the best of the cast ends here. The rest are reduced to one-dimensional and stupid characters, as is the case with Stephen Lang (the "brute like the stones" colonel who only thinks about his mission), Michelle Rodríguez (the military hot girl who decides to collaborate with the "goodies" instead of helping the "baddies"), Giovanni Ribisi (one of the" baddies"), Joel David Moore (one of the" goodies"), Laz Alonso, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi (the "perfect ones") etc. This was somewhat disappointing in a film with so many qualities and such a high budget.

It is in the technical aspects that this film excels. Directed by James Cameron, an avid fan of the green screen and a "rival" of Spielberg, it's a film that was built on top of an entire digital world. Thanks to this feature, Cameron can become a god for a minute and create a new universe with plants and animals that we have never seen and that exude beauty. The film has a spectacular cinematography and it does not pass five minutes without, in some way, making us hold our breath before such a show of color and light. Sound effects are very well-used also. Together with an epic and magnificent soundtrack by James Horner, we have the recipe for a blockbuster film that collected three Oscars in technical categories (Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction), with all the fairness and merit. I really feel sorry that I didn't see it on the big screen and that Cameron is so careless when it comes to the script and the story he tells us.