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After 12 years away from feature-film directing, James Cameron
(Titanic, Terminator 2, Aliens) is back with "Avatar," the story of a
paraplegic former marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who is sent to
a distant inhabited Earth-like moon, Pandora, to replace his
murdered twin brother.
There, he must inhabit an Avatar, a remotely-linked to and controlled life
form, which is physically similar
to the natives of Pandora but in reality is a combination of
both alien and human DNA.
Jake accepts the assignment in part because through his Avatar he will be
able to walk again. He has also been promised by the
corporate-military enterprise in charge of the mission, that
once the job is done they will finance the surgery so that he
can regain the use of his real legs.
Jake is to embed himself into the Na'vi, a humanoid race with
their own language and culture, and
gather information for the company. Yet, he ends up bonding
with the indigenous tribe and fighting to save their planet from
the humans.
Most of the action takes place in a highly detailed and
beautifully rendered 3D world seemingly inspired by tropical
forests, subaquatic life forms, and Roger Dean's surrealist
painting (see links below). Sixty percent of what we
see in the film are
photo-realistic CGI scenes and beings.
The movement of the main characters is the result of the increasingly
popular motion capture technique; and the facial expressions -
still one of the greatest challenges in this kind of
rendering - are based on recordings of the actors' real
expressions on cameras attached in front of their faces while they perform during the motion captures.
The state-of-the-art CGI technology in "Avatar" will
certainly bring it more than one movie award, but the story
itself is not up to par. Although basically well assembled, it is
such a retreaded plot that many viewers will find themselves
guessing correctly what will happen next.
In fact, some scenes and environmentally-inclined elements of the
plot somehow remind us of "Pocahontas". Not that we
have anything against being environmentally friendly.
As far as the soundtrack goes, it has its interesting moments,
but at others tends to go into clichés such as the world music
inspired beats that accompany many of the naturalistic scenes
and those featuring the planet's natives.
In a nutshell, "Avatar" is a spectacular looking visit to Cameron's imagination with a simplistic story behind it
that carries the almost-three-hour film through without making
the spectator feel like it is dragging along. The incredible
images, however, will
stay in people's memory more than the story.
"Avatar" opened in the US and Spain on December 18,
2009. For release dates in your country check your local media.
Links to Roger Dean paintings that predate - and probably
inspired - some of the scenes in this film:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/roger+dean/myeyes33/Roger%20Dean%20Art/FlightsOfIcarus600.jpg?o=81
http://media.photobucket.com/image/Roger%20Dean/gbongjustin/seaoflight.jpg
http://media.photobucket.com/image/roger+dean/myeyes33/Roger%20Dean%20Art/153216.jpg?o=85
http://media.photobucket.com/image/roger+dean/myeyes33/Roger%20Dean%20Art/1190587528-Roger_Dean___floating_is.jpg?o=22
For more information on the world of Avatar check out
Pandorapedia: http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php
Don't miss the
film's companion book:
Click on cover to purchase. |
