Barrett’s Review: Avatar Is The Most Stunning Cinematic Experience I’ve Ever Had

Avatar (A)

Before we delve into this review, two things need to be stated immediately regarding James Cameron’s Avatar. 1) It absolutely MUST ONLY be seen in IMAX 3D. And I don’t mean that scam IMAX screen at your local AMC theater, I’m talking about the six-story legit IMAX screen that you’re probably going to have to drive an hour to get to. And 2) Avatar is the most stunning and breathtaking cinematic experience I have ever had in my entire life.

I’m sure many of you haven’t succumb to the hype yet and are jaded by the trailers and TV spots because it “looks so weird,” as many people have told me over the last several weeks. Well I am here to tell you right now that the hype is a complete and utter understatement on how mind-blowing this movie actually is. As I’m writing this review I am struggling to find adjectives to accurately describe exactly what I experienced last night, as what James Cameron & Co. have put together is the on a completely different level, a different stratosphere, the first of its kind.

For those who don’t know, James Cameron wrote the original script for Avatar back in 1994 right before doing True Lies. This film has gone through the proverbial run-around as it had many times been given the green light, then back-tracked due to the lack of available film technology to justly create Cameron’s vision. So for the past decade, the CGI technology for Avatar has been slowly, but surely, advancing to do just that. And boy do great things come to those who wait.

So let’s get to the review.

The year is 2154 and a paraplegic war veteran named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is brought to a distant and exotic planet called Pandora. Pandora is inhabited by a humanoid race of “savage” alien tribes called the Na’vi. A large base of human military forces occupy an area near the Na’vi, with a corporate objective of either evacuating and/or exterminating the natives in order to mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland.

To better learn about the Na’vi and hopefully find a diplomatic solution to all this, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) developed the Avatar program which acts as a virtual reality program, giving a human the ability to control the biological Na’vi version of them self. Sully’s Avatar mission is to learn from the Na’vi to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict and provide intel to his military superiors. Once among the Na’vi, Sully is not immediately accepted, but is allowed to learn their ways at the behest of the Na’vi’s spiritual leader. Sully is then trained by the beautiful (I know it sounds weird, but she’s actually really hot) Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who teaches him the mythical, spiritual and hunting ways of the Na’vi. Sully and Neytiri soon discover deep feelings for each other and Sully is then thrust into deciding whether to follow his heart or follow orders.

It’s not the most original plot, which is one of the reasons it didn’t get an A+ grade. I mean, the imperialistic, civilized race threatens the existence of the indigenous natives. The handsome, brooding soldier of the civil race accidentally meets a beautiful “savage” female.  Opposites attract and they then have to choose between each other and their own people. Pocahontas anyone? Now this is not really a big deal, as everything else about this film is 100% unique, I just wish Cameron didn’t approach his script with such a formulaic mentality.

What obviously makes this film so unbelievable are the visuals. When you are watching Avatar, you feel like you are on drugs, you feel euphoric. The computer-generated motion capture combined with the 3D technology makes you literally feel like you are inside Pandora. At first, at least for me, the 3D experience is so immersive that it made me kind of uncomfortable. The images are so crisp, so clear and so realistic that it made me just feel, weird. But once the story began to unfold and I saw the gorgeous and colorful scenery of Pandora, I couldn’t imagine seeing it any other way. When Cameron’s epic sweeping shots pan over the canyons of the Pandoran forest, you feel like you’re falling into the screen and your jaw immediately drops at its beauty. Coinciding with the crispness of the images is Cameron’s use of almost every hue and shade of the color spectrum. Pandora, it’s wildlife, its trees, its grass, it’s mountains, etc., all have the most imaginative and brilliant color scheme that will make you appreciate your ability to see.

Now this is James Cameron we’re talking about people; Terminator 1 & 2, Aliens, True Lies, you know he’s going to have some badass action. A lot of the action in the beginning and middle of the film is the Na’vi’s interaction with the wildlife on Pandora. Cameron has created some truly original and never-before-seen alien creatures that inhabit his world; ranging from viscous dog-like predators whose eyes glow in the dark, to the Banshees, colorful dragon-like creatures which every Na’vi must tame as a right of passage. Sully is either constantly running from these creatures or riding them through the air and it is truly mesmerizing. But it’s not until towards the the end of the film when we get to experience the epic end battle scene. I’m not going to describe it too much in detail, because I want to leave a lot to your imagination if you haven’t seen it yet. But let me tell you that your jaw will be on the floor and you will be at the edge of your seat for about 30 minutes straight. It’s THAT intense.

The casting suffices Cameron’s ambitions and objectives. Worthington is a perfect Sully. An arrogant, yet compassionate warrior with intelligence. Zoe Saldana absolutely kills it as Neytiri. Although her character is completely computer-generated, the emotional power she displays with her voice as the tough, yet vulnerable Na’vi, makes her character so compelling. One casting choice that factored into my A instead of A+ grade is Joel David Moore as the nerdy biologist Norm. He’s good in small doses or in stoner comedies, i.e. Gradma’s Boy. But every time he made a sarcastic quip as the semi-comic relief in Avatar, it came off irritating to me. I can see his casting if that was Cameron’s intention for the character, but I feel another actor could have delivered a much more convincing and less annoying performance. Along with that, some of Cameron’s dialogue comes of as campy and forced; such as the several “GET SOME!” exclaims by the human soldiers. I realize Cameron wasn’t writing this script with the intention of obtaining a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, but some of the lines were very cheesy, which detracted from it’s overall greatness.

What else can be said. Avatar, ONLY IN IMAX 3D, is THE coolest and most engrossing film experience I’ve ever had sitting in a movie theater. It is so game-changing and epic that this review really does not do the film any justice whatsoever. You simply have to go to your local IMAX IMMEDIATELY and see Avatar as soon as humanly possible.

What Should You Do? Do I really have to say?