Avatar - a review
Dec. 24th, 2009 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharplittleteethIf you were a 13 year old boy, Avatar would be the best movie ever.
It's got helicopter gunships. It's got alien worlds. It's got noble savages who ride flying lizards. It's got a sexy blue cat-woman and you can kind of see her nipples.
Visually, it's spectacular.
Plot wise? Um...
If you've seen the trailer, you know the whole story. Evil humans invade alien paradise. White male hero goes native, helps tribespeople fight off the invaders, gets to shag the sexy blue cat-woman.
Forget the Apology to the Stolen Generation - this is how you deal with white oppressor guilt.
I know, I know -- I'm being a spoilsport. Any film with blue cat-people is clearly telling you not to take it too seriously. It's just... I cringed everytime those cat-people were on screen. It's like James Cameron took every dumb cliche about primitive tribespeople, and put a blue tail on them.
And it's all so by-the-numbers. So much imagination went into designing the alien world of Pandora, and devising the technology to film it, that it's a shame so little was spent on the plot. There's no twists, no surprises, no uncomfortable complexity to get between the movie and it's goal of making squillions of dollars.
The highlight of the movie is Pandora, its lush jungles, its bioluminecent plants, its wonderful zoology. If you see it, go see it at IMAX, so you can drown yourself in this amazing world.
It's got helicopter gunships. It's got alien worlds. It's got noble savages who ride flying lizards. It's got a sexy blue cat-woman and you can kind of see her nipples.
Visually, it's spectacular.
Plot wise? Um...
If you've seen the trailer, you know the whole story. Evil humans invade alien paradise. White male hero goes native, helps tribespeople fight off the invaders, gets to shag the sexy blue cat-woman.
Forget the Apology to the Stolen Generation - this is how you deal with white oppressor guilt.
I know, I know -- I'm being a spoilsport. Any film with blue cat-people is clearly telling you not to take it too seriously. It's just... I cringed everytime those cat-people were on screen. It's like James Cameron took every dumb cliche about primitive tribespeople, and put a blue tail on them.
And it's all so by-the-numbers. So much imagination went into designing the alien world of Pandora, and devising the technology to film it, that it's a shame so little was spent on the plot. There's no twists, no surprises, no uncomfortable complexity to get between the movie and it's goal of making squillions of dollars.
The highlight of the movie is Pandora, its lush jungles, its bioluminecent plants, its wonderful zoology. If you see it, go see it at IMAX, so you can drown yourself in this amazing world.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-24 11:36 am (UTC)I'll give Cameron this: it's a well put together film. The script may be hollow, but the acting is solid, the cinematography excellent, the CGI is breathtaking, and he can shoot gigantic action scenes in a way that actually makes sense (unlike, say, Michael Bay, who just wobbles the camera in front of explosions).
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 06:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-26 09:58 am (UTC)AVATAR 2: Sully Dies Because The Na'vi Lack Basic Antibiotics.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-05 04:01 am (UTC)