- Location: Mid-Rivers Mall
- Avatar is one of those rare science fiction films that creates a completely new world. Pandora isn't supposed to resemble Earth, and it isn't just a dressed-up version of Redwood National Forest or any of the other usual terrestrial proxies for alien planets. No, Pandora is a unique wonderland made up of towering old-growth rainforest by day and phosphorescent beauty by night. Some of the local fauna resemble hyenas or scaled-up rhinos, while others, like the ikran or their larger toruk cousins, are something new -- maybe a cross between dragons and pterodactyls? And then there are the intelligent indigenous beings known as the Na'vi. Slender, blue, and roughly ten feet tall, the Na'vi (whose name means "The People") look vaguely feline, but their culture is distinctly more developed than that of the average cat. They practice a vaguely animistic religion that involves literal communion with their environment, a custom that contrasts sharply with those of the newly arrived "sky people" who hail from the planet Earth.
- For Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the trip to Pandora means the start of a new life. A paraplegic Marine, Sully probably didn't expect to get recalled to active duty, but his are special circumstances. You see, Sully's recently deceased brother was part of the "Avatar" program, a technological tour-de-force that enables humans to remotely control artificially grown Na'vi bodies. The term "puppet show" is applied to the program in a derogatory fashion, but there is some truth to the metaphor. At any rate, the avatars are tailor-made to a particular genetic code, meaning that only Jake can take over where his brother left off. But what are the avatars good for? The program's scientific chief, the gruff, chain-smoking researcher Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), uses them to study the Na'vi and their environment in situ, but her funding ultimately comes from the mining consortium headed by Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). Selfridge is a stereotypically nearsighted businessman who, in the interest of keeping up his company's bottom line, seeks the path of least resistance to the valuable "unobtainium" ore located beneath Na'vi settlements. If the Avatar program can achieve that goal diplomatically, fine. If not, the hawkish chief of security, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), sure is pleased to hear that there will be a Marine out there in a Na'vi body working recon for him.
- What nobody correctly anticipates, however, is how Jake Sully will react to becoming Na'vi. In normal life, Sully is a quiet, subdued man. The scientists initially assume he's just another trigger-happy grunt while the Marines...well, their first reaction is to call him "Meals on Wheels." When he steps into the avatar, however, the curtain is suddenly lifted. In his first excursion into his new body, Sully rushes pass the monitoring physicians and his fellow avatar, Norm Spellman (Joel Moore), to sprint around on Pandora's lush surface. His inaugural mission is even more of a thrill, as Sully is rescued from certain death by the beautiful and skilled Na'vi warrior, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). In one day, Sully gets closer to the Na'vi than any human ever has, impressing the scientists and military types alike. At the behest of the tribe's elders (Wes Studi and C.C.H. Pounder), Neytiri is ordered to instruct Sully in their ways, much to the chagrin of the warrior Tsu'tey (Laz Alonso), who has some pretty legitimate reasons to be jealous. Before long, Sully is completely immersed in the world of the Na'vi. As he notes in the video logs that serve as the film's narration, "Everything is backwards now. Like out there is the true world and in here is the dream."
- The remainder of the film depicts the fairly predictable ensemble of violent interactions that ensue between an archetypal military-industrial complex and the idealized benevolent natives and their adopted champion. There's a little too much mustache-twirling on the part of the bad guys, Selfridge in particular, and some laughably on-the-nose connections to modern conflicts suggested (mostly by Michelle Rodriguez's character), but frankly I wasn't watching a James Cameron film for the story. I went to see Avatar for the visual effects, set design, and action sequences, and I was not disappointed. The film is set 150 years in the future, and that's how advanced its visuals seem. The Na'vi are beautifully emotive in a way that no other CGI creation has ever been (sorry, Gollum). Pandora itself is a far more fully-realized world than the average science fiction locale, and Cameron's amazingly restrained use of 3D only highlights the expansiveness of its forests in contrast to the humans' tight quarters. With help from strong performances by Worthington, Weaver, Lang, Moore, and everyone who modeled, voiced, and animated the Na'vi, Cameron makes this amazing world seem completely real. More than that, he enables the audience to see Pandora in a sense that the Na'vi would appreciate.
- I saw the film in 2D at Mid-Rivers and in 3D at Silver Spring Majestic 20.
- I couldn't fit this in the review, but various aspects of the Na'vi were obviously modeled after Native American tribes, etc. Except for them winning at the end, I suppose.
- In one line, Michelle Rodriguez uses both the terms "shock and awe" and "daisy cutters." I was hoping that a giant CGI date stamp would appear in the corner of the screen so that future generations would know exactly when this film was made. Sheesh.
