Avatar (2009) Is it Worth the Hype?

A good portion, or at least a larger portion than you’d expect, of people that attended the same screening of Avatar as I did had seen it the previous midnight showing. Some had seen it earlier that day. You’d be surprised the things you hear while people think you’re watching the commercials

-After the screening, there was the usual hyperbole, but from a relatively balanced cross-section of people, instead of say, New Moon, where you’d have the pre-teen Team Edward Groupies gushing in their Tampax while the boyfriends they dragged uttered obscenities as they exited the theater. I tend to get trapped in the middle of the throng of exiting people so I can’t help but hear reactions, even if I don’t want to. Actually, in terms of amount of people, the masses resembled last November’s Twilight 2 opening, except you got the feeling the majority of people actually wanted to SEE the movie, instead of Teenage Girl and her captive Plus 1. The point being, more that one person remarked at how they were going to see Avatar again very soon.

Those reactions, as I’m sure they’re the same in theaters across the country (especially IMAX), should be more telling than the overhype surrounding the movie or its Golden Globe Nomination for Best Picture (Go Basterds!!!). Odds are by the time of this posting, you or someone a degree or less close to you has already seen it. Maybe even twice. If you haven’t seen it...why?

Oh, you want to avoid the crowds. Fair enough.

You deserve to have a good time at the theater, especially after you took your medicine like good little boys and girls and sat through Invictus. Now go enjoy yourselves and watch blue elongated versions of Gumby and Pokey jump around trees and play bows and arrows.

Avatar is writer/director/swingin’ dick/overseer James Cameron’s (T2, Piranha II) follow-up to Titanic after 12 years. Take your time, why don’t ya? Much has been unnecessarily made about Avatar’s cost (reportedly in the hundreds of thousands), but after seeing, you can tell where it all went: Making Sigourney Weaver not look like Frances Sternhagen. Money Well Spent.

It’s the year 2154, and the Earth is stripped of most of its natural resources. Bullet dodged because I’ll be so dead by the time that happens and odds are so will you. Earth needs help and needs it now. We’ve found some possible help on the moon of Endor...Pandora. A mineral called Unobtainium is found in abundant supply near a big-ass tree on Pandora. Sucks that we don’t need Easytogettanium.

Pandora’s natives, called the Na’vi, don’t want to part with the mineral for reasons that are their own, most notably that it’s THEIRS. Like you’ve seen in the ads and trailers, the Na’vi are lanky blue sea horse looking creatures that can leap trees with the greatest of ease. It’s really difficult to tell when they’re sad because they’re always blue.

Corporate bigwig Parker (Giovanni Ribisi) is willing to do anything to obtain Unobtainium and won’t even blink if it means destroying some Na’vi homes and lives in the process (“Find me a carrot that’ll get them to move, or else I’ll have to use all stick”).

Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is only too eager to use the weaponry at his disposal to help. Perhaps he’s been on Pandora too long and the poisonous gas is finally getting to him. Or maybe he’s always been that uptight and trigger-happy. Come out of the closet, man. It’ll do you a world of good.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, the only beat of life in last summer’s tepid Terminator Salvation- Gotta wonder if Terminator creator Cameron clowned Worthington for being in the limpest Terminator yet) is a marine. A paraplegic marine. He’s been in space in stasis for years, trying to find his purpose in life, his place in the world, because in space, no one can hear you scream about not finding any parking, despite your Disabled Person sticker. His twin brother Tommy (Mas Notgnihtrow) may be the key.

Because Tommy is dead. Tommy was a gifted scientist. Jake was not.

But...Jake and Tommy share the same genomes, which makes Jake a very special candidate for a very special job. You can have a moment to look up ‘genomes’.

Jake is the only physical match for Tommy’s Na’vi Avatar, making him able to walk and talk among the Na’vi while not being susceptible to Pandora’s poison gas. The avatar can do anything a Na’vi can do, providing the driver knows what he/she is doing. The Avatar program was created and run by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney “There is no Dana only Zuul” Weaver), and she’s reluctant to accept Jake because that’s what characters like her do to characters like him. Don’t worry, movie protocol demands that she eventually warm up to him.

Dr. Grace and her crew want to negotiate with the Na’vi to find some common ground, some peaceful way to get needed resources. Jake’s Avatar will help in that regard.

Parker and Colonel Quaritch want to take any and all of Pandora’s resources, the quicker the better. They’re just itching to use deadly force. Jake’s Avatar will help in that regard.

Since Jake’s a Marine, he sees no problem playing both sides. He’s got his legs back, after a fashion. It’s not like he’ll actually get to know the Na’vi as sentient feeling beings and eventually fall in love with one of them.

While they’re going on a chopper ride (driven by Michelle Rodriquez, cast as a tough girl as opposed to the usual ballerinas she plays), Jake is stupid enough to land on Pandora ground without the benefit of a parachute. Really dumb move, considering he knows next to nothing about the Pandora terrain.

Jake gets to meet the native Pandora wildlife, and it’s not the lanky blue people. It’s something a lot bigger.

The chopper crew is forced to leave Jake in the forest overnight. He probably won’t make it that long. In fact, he’s about to be killed by a hot Na’vi girl named Neyriti (Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana, starring in her second movie this year featuring a blue bitch), but because of some divine intervention, she stays her hand and lets him live. As far as meet-cutes go, you could do a lot worse...

Neyriti is compelled to let Jake tag along, and Jake is only so happy to do so. She lets him meet the members of her clan, and her parents make Neyriti train Jake in the ways of the Jedi...Na’vi.

Montage alert! Show Jake being comically clumsy. Show Jake getting it down. Show Jake badass.

Dr. Grace is ecstatic because Jake is getting access to the Na’vi ways, becoming a part of their lives. Hopefully, they’ll trust him enough to allow negotiations to advance.

Colonel Quaritch has an erection because Jake is getting access to the Na’vi ways, becoming a part of their lives. Hopefully, they’ll trust him enough to let him know where large quantities of Unobtainuim are located. Then he and his huge phallic weaponry can take it from them.

But Jake is torn, because he’s starting to fall for Neyriti and master the ways of the Na’vi. Ain’t that a bitch? First girl you meet in 5 years, and then you realize that your bosses may have to kill her, her family, and maybe even her planet. On the plus side, he no longer needs a wheelchair, which will help him fuck up any competition in the 2156 Special Olympics.

What works with Avatar-

1) The Oscar for special FX goes to... One COULD try to describe the creatures and the sights you see while you’re on Pandora watching Avatar (I’m being as vague as I can), but you should really see them yourself. Will it “change the way you see movies”, as the ads claim? Probably not, but for those of us jaded on FX heavy but soulless product like 2012 or Transformers 2, you’ll be taken away in a manner you didn’t think possible at the movies anymore.

2) Zoe Saldana actually makes a hot blue chick and in a lot of ways is the toughest character in the movie. You gotta like any girl that can gut you without giving it a second thought...along with a see-thru bra. Hey, it’s a 45 foot screen, double that with IMAX, don’t tell me you didn’t notice.

3) I’ll admit it, the assault on the Big-ass Tree had me tearing a little, like I just stubbed something really hard. It’s a tribute to Cameron’s hubris and talent how much you actually care for the characters...as well as a tree. The FX aren’t primary or secondary, but serve the story perfectly as needed.

4) A shot of hands on Jake. Ask someone who’s seen it. They’ll know.

5) The gathering of the Clans is a great movie moment. If you’re not into it by now, then Avatar lost you a long time ago. You could always watch something shallow like The Blind Side again...

6) Colonel Quaritch’s face. Though you’d think in 2154, he’d have a different haircut than a 90’s fade.

7) The 4th act action climax is a technical masterpiece, and the genuine emotional connection you have with the characters adds a dimension, I’ll say it again, you probably haven’t felt in a while. Plus, no stupid Dog character.

What doesn’t work-

1) Great character actor Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan, Lost in Translation) is saddled with playing a half-dimensional bureaucratic prick. You’d hate him more if he wasn’t such a thin and obvious device.

2) Though you take small pains not to notice because you’re swept away by the movie, you can’t help but realize how similar the plot is to Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai.

3) At the end of a great movie...you have to hear that fucking Leona Lewis song (“I see...you”). It’s actually worse than you heard it might be. I tried to get out of the theater as fast as I could, but there were too many people. Please, please, don’t let this get as much airplay as at fucking Celine Dion song from Titanic. This song’s so awful it may just win the Oscar for Best Song, like that syrupy Phil Collins song for Tarzan. I see you...I just don’t want to hear you.

Overall. Avatar is one of the few movies, that if you are going to see, you really must see in theaters, 3D mandatory, IMAX if at all possible. Don’t take my word for it, ask someone you know, they’ll tell you how great it is. Is it a perfect movie? No, but you won’t be thinking that WHILE you watch it. A lock for one of the 10 Best Picture slots next January. Hell, it’d be a lock for one of the 5 slots. Let’s hope James Cameron doesn’t wait another 12 years before making another movie, because no moviegoer wants to wait that long in such an abyss...