Movie Reviews World
Movie Reviews World
Sometimes we're quick to judges some times we ride the rollercoaster of negativity because it seems like that edgy and easy thing to do and I would say that that was me when I finished watching James Cameron's Avatar in theaters in 3d back in 2009 at an opening midnight screening at the time I said I hated it and I've said as much here as well see proof that I'm an ass hole I made a blanket statement without explaining why who would expect something like that on the Internet but upon reflection did I truly hate Avatar was the story so unimaginative and character so dull that regardless of its groundbreaking technology 3d and digital cinematography and astronomical box office gross was it not a good film well over a decade later I watched avatar again and while I wouldn't say I hate avatar I will say that it's a problematic yet pretty package to give you the most basic of rundowns before getting into the good and bad here Jake Sully is a marine in the sometimes future his twin brother was a scientist and going to be a part of the Avatar program on Pandora a planet home to the Navi bipedal people who were vicious warrior sand care deeply for nature now the humans are also on pandora doing the whole neo-colonial thing and that's obviously leading to some tension but why are we talking about this jake sully guy oh because his brother died and since jake and here twins and you know DNA is magic like that Jake can be mine melded into his Navi avatar body an assist Sigourney Weaver trying to find a peaceful resolution between the human sand the Navi but little do they know that the military are evil sneaky sneaks and they're actually trying to use Jake to get intel on what points they can attack to drive the tribe away from their precious un obtainium yep it's a whole big web a conflict with Jake right in the center but what would happen if this simple man Jake Sully actually came to appreciate the Navi people well

 the story made me familiar the world certainly is not avatar is still a visual feast shot composition color balance and the overall look of the film is stunning the world Pandor is lush and every pixel in the planet is populated with dense and detail character and creature design is stunning landscapes and botany are spellbinding if there is one thing that James Cameron absolutely nails it is creating a sense of magic about the world he is undeniably a top-tier world builder and wanted to show us everything that there was to love and see in Pandora and we certainly can expect to see more since this has four sequels lined up but it's not just what he shows us but how he shows it to us director of photography Mauro Fiore worked closely with visual effects supervisor what a digital Jolla Terry to ensure that the audience got nothing less than dazzling frames rich with vibrant colors and exceptional shots color balance throughout is incredible with some remarkable moments of contra stand other instances of shots being bathed in unifying hues yet despite this vibrance avatar never feels like we' overstepped into a cartoon this is a visually smart film and a true celebration of Cameron's imagination and technological mastery for as sharp a film as an avatar is with its visual language however, the film's somatic focus is fuzzy at best it is a sizzler of half-baked themes none of which leave of you are fully satisfied and in fact, might actually, make you a little bit queasy if you examine what's actually been cooked up there's a little bit of something for everyone here but nothing is great we've got pro-environment and anti-capitalist messaging there are nods of spirituality and togetherness but the problem is that none of them are plumbed in any complex or deep way leaving you with the thought that there may be an excavation about to happen but instead,

 you just stand there looking foolish with a shovel and a bunch of surface-level holes this is incredibly disappointing considering that science fiction is a genre with the most flexibility for this sort of thematic exploration shows like Star Trek and Black Mirror have presented remarkable questions about all of the elements I've listed in wildly inventive ways and they've done so in far less time so the fact that avatar feels like such a scattershot is a real bummer what's worse is that some of these messages may not be intentional take, for example, our main character JakeSully now when I first talked about plot there was one element that I omitted Jake is paraplegic and the issue with Jake being in a wheelchair is that it doesn't seem to be ever used for anything more than a put-down or a prop for plot making his representation actually a touch ablest in getting to have his mind connected with the Navi, Jake is elated because he's able to walk again and we're supposed to experience a heightened sense of wonder because this is one of the few times that Jake smiles in the film and it's not as hm self it's not without the use of his legs similarly Jake is bribed by StephenLang's character Colonel Quaritch to spy on his mission for the military and in return he'll get a surgery so that he can walk again in all of these instances while Jake maybe presented as independent in his wheelchair-bound human form he's always shown as small and diminutive heightened further when scaled next to towering mechs or when he is literally helpless on the ground gasping for air next in a teary near the film's conclusion Jake does nothing remotely brave or heroic while humanity's only in his Navi form that he is a leader and has the heart of a warrior and that subtext is troubling Jake being in a wheelchair additionally feels like a cheap trick to make the audience pity him or at least root for him as an underdog but with or without his wheelchair

Jake Sully is actually rather unlikable and unsympathetic as the main character he suffers from something of an Anakin Skywalker syndrome where he brash lacks charm and his smile registers very frequently as more of a sneer and while a few cases of these can be blamed on perhaps of the motion capture and the visual effects team but I'm inclined to place the blame on actor Sam Worthington there's also a woodenness across the voiceovers that make him seem really distant and even when it's revealed that these voice overs are actually video logs for the scientists which do snap us out of the faceless narration element Sully continues to be hard to attach to because these logs are something he's doing but grudgingly hey man very sorry that you got this really cool opportunity to go to Pandora to experience a whole new culture and all you need to do is a little work and then these narrations seemingly dissolve back to just being plain voiceover by the end of the film making it a rather lazy and vague narrative scripting device but like whatever speaking of delivery performances from Worthington and most of the military crew have a certain bravado that you'd expect from a power thirst commercial land it's not matched by anyone else in the film Sigourney Weaver outside of a pretty the cheesy opening scene is bringing her all in a grounded performance as are all the Navi especially Zoe Saldana amateur we've got these nuanced performances clashing up against machismo posturing both believe they'rein different films and that creates a dissonance in their scenes together and not in a good way oh and speaking of the military this is a very minor narrative and character right but why did Jake have to be meeting everyone for the first time what if she knew the colonel from before and so they had a degree of mutual respect a father-son dynamic the sense of brotherhood this sort of relationship the shift wouldn't have altered plot in any way but would have made Jake choosing to defend the Navi and then his final showdown with the colonel at the end has so much more weight right I was talking about unintentional messaging sorry back to that like the conflict in performances there are also several beats where ideologies sort of clash up against one another so the Naviare in nature-loving tribe right andnatira is teaching Jake to respect the nature around him a perfect example of this is when he's learning to ride one of those dire horse things are his neural cue bond with the creature is seen as something of sacred but when it comes to the ikran and he's told to fight it which initially you're like okay he has to fight it but then out of respect the Navi any crown will bond nope this is a scene where our hero of the film is encouraged to and then forces an animal into submission which is not great also not great is

 avatars relationship to race and there are quite a few elements stacked against this never mind that avatar is a narrative retread of Dance with Wolves or Pocahontas or even the notion that a white person being indoctrinated into a savage culture who comes to appreciate that culture and then is ultimately seen by a leader because of something deep within his heart that makes him a leader subtextual II problematic avatar also has the troubling fact that characters like Parker Selfridge and Colonel Quaritch are presented as over bad people spouting racist rhetoric and yet the film attempts to make them appear as cool characters but in that case, most audiences should be able to discern them as interesting but wrong in their ideologies and not be putting them up on pedestals well those two strikes against the film are valid I think the biggest the racial issue is how avatar presents people of color in the film and how its future presented is wildly white now that's not to say that the cast is in diverse we've got Michelle Rodriguezinto Lee prowl in supporting roles but all of the major screen, leads are white or blue so all the Navi are played by people of color but grouped into a single other not white tribal people and while yes they are the good guys with the spiritual love for nature they are also showcased as primitive when compared to the powerful and

technologically savvy whites and it means their true selves the actual actors themselves are being masked and unseen by the audience and again those are some rough optics this then brings up the notion could say Michael B Jordan have played jake sully instead of Sam Worthington what would avatar have lost or gained if we saw more people of color as any of the other military or scientist personnel and similarly could the Navi have been played by anyone not just people of color how if at all would that affect the overall messaging of the film now is it fair to view an older film through a modern lens not always no but this is also a film made only 10 years ago this wasn't made during the era of Jim Crow but Jim Cameron so well I agree that the world of Pandora is visually dazzling with every creature a what protects being unique and sequences like the flight of banshees are absolutely awe-inspiring and even that some of the film's messaging railing against materialism and yes a xenophobia is well-intended you also need to acknowledge that there are many thorny issues and underminingisms in this movie so do I hate Avatar no and I'll happily return to Pandora for its sequels but as a first entry I would only recommend avatar with a lot of as terisksso those are my thoughts on avatar leave your thoughts in the comments down below and of course if you'd like more from me you can certainly check out my previous review on Back to the Future 3 or my update a blog for my brother and me about our comics so comment click and keep loving movies guys as for me I'm gonna try to figure out what a Pandora  bases quid would be like because all the four-legged creatures on the planet had 6 legs and they also had those antennae and a squid has eight arms and two tentacles so just noodle on that for a bit