Every ten years or so there comes a film that stands out from other films. A film so unique, so driven, so ground breaking and challenging, that it makes it hard to go back. It doesn't just win the game, it changes the way the game is played.
Avatar is not that film.
Avatar is directed by James Cameron, who is hands down the best sequel director there is, at least until The Dark Knight was released. Allow me to explain. Most of Cameron's films have been a little less than impressive. Terminator, Titanic, The Abyss, these films both showcased impressive effects and were at the least an exciting premise, but failed in the overall narrative and final execution. The only exceptions have been his sequels, and 'True Lies', an entertainingly hilarious action film, and that was a remake of the French film 'La Totale!', so arguably a sequel in any case.
His sequels, however, have always succeeded in taking interesting but poorly developed science fiction films, and turning them into highly polished mindless action films. Terminator 2 and Aliens are among the fienst action films ever made, managing to combine a high level of special effects with a well thought out and engaging story.
By this logic, Avatar 2 should be really, really good.
I have rather mixed feelings about Avatar. On the one hand, the special effects were impressive, and the 3d was nice to look at, though it did turn to go rather blurry whenever something was moving fast (so it's a good thing we weren't watching an action film or anything like that). And I did go and see it with my family, followed by dinner out, so overall it was an absolutely lovely night that I highly enjoyed.
But I did spend the entire film rewriting the plot in my head.
It's not that Avatar doesn't have an interesting story, it's just that unfortunately so did three or four other films I could think of, and little has changed between them. The plot can be crudely stated as "good guy sets out to fight bad guys, due to totally unexpected turn of events gets captured by bad guys, bad guys turn out to be good guys and vice versa, lots of fighting, everybody goes home for tea and biscuits, so long as by home you mean various huts and caves in floating rocks, by tea you mean some kind of fruit, and by biscuits you mean the widespread and irreparable destruction of the surrounding woodlands which will leave thousands dead and homeless and cause lasting damage to the ecoystem.
The characters could charitably be described as simplified, and uncharitably described as cardboard caricatures. The hero is in it for revenge and personal gain until he realises there are bigger things like, um, trees and stuff. The main antagonist is a General who enjoys spouting one liners such as "let's finish this, I want to be home by dinner" and then looking around smugly, persumably to check if anyone had noticed that snappy one liner.
What annoys me the most about Avatar is that there actaully is a lot of promise in it. The plot itself is sound, but badly put together. The characters would be quite interesting if they were given a bit of depth, and the effects would be even better if they were given slightly less depth. It's a promising idea, it just needed more work. Mind you, since he reportedly took 14 years to make it, the questions remains, how much longer did he need?
But you never know. The sequel could be ok.
Rating: 2 out of 6.
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