(A compelling scene from the movie)James Cameron's groundbreaking, $300 million movie not only a fabulous fantasy in a world of fluorescence, but the standout movie of 2009. (Review by Billy Suter, courtesy of The Mercury)
Here it is, folks, the most memorable movie of the year – one that has been decades in the planning, cost a whopping $300 million to create and which has received four Golden Globe nominations (for best drama, director James Cameron, James Horner’s score and the theme song, I Will See You).
Avatar is also proving a monster hit, which augurs well for Cameron’s trilogy plan – the first day of box-office takings saw it become the third highest-grossing film ever for a December release, after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and I Am Legend.
Remember that sense of awe, wonder and history-in-the-making you felt when you first saw Star Wars and The Matrix? Or when you first experienced Toy Story, the pioneering computer-animated feature (to be re-released in 3D early in January, by the way)? Well, that’s how spellbound you’ll be by Avatar, writer-director Cameron’s first film since his record-breaking Titanic 12 years ago, and one that offers a compelling story with universal themes, all glossily wrapped in elaborate and quite magical visual spectacle. It’s a groundbreaking fantasy work for which, like George Lucas did with the Star Wars franchise, Cameron has created an intricately detailed new world that never fails to amaze.
Another back-pat for Cameron for having been instrumental in developing new technology to create the seamless morphing of actors into fantasy creatures while filming in 3D (Avatar is shown in 2D in most cinemas, most splendidly at Umhlanga’s giant-sceen Imax cinema).
Cameron’s story is set in the year 2154 and on a planet called Pandora. There the native population called the Na’vi, scantily clad tree-hugger sorts with tails and long, plaited ponytails, lead a peaceful life. They are 3m-tall, human-meets-feline-like folk with striped, glittering blue skin and yellow eyes. And they are about to have their world rocked. The villains are greedy humans seeking a precious mineral called (rather amusingly) unobtainium, which becomes crucial to dying Earth’s survival.
The only way to harvest it is to shoo the Na’vi away from the mineral’s richest source around a monstrously colossal tree, which entails getting to know this precious spot and the big, blue creatures better. And that’s where charismatic Aussie actor Sam Worthington and a red-haired Sigourney Weaver (seen in Cameron’s Aliens) step in.
Worthington is Jake, a crippled marine, and Weaver is Grace, a chain-smoking scientist who has perfected the means of having herself, Jake and others’ minds control Na’vi clones that mix human and Na’vi DNA. These avatars, as they are called, enable Jake and company to pose as one of the locals, and mingle and learn from the tribe. The humans lie asleep in a pod while their avatars cavort in a fluorescent forest world inhabited by dangerous, six-legged animals, bizarre under-sea-like flora and flying, dragon-like creatures which the Na’vi harness after bonding with them using … um … tentacles in their .. um… ponytails.
Not unexpectedly, complications arise for Jake – first when he is approached by military toughies to spy on the Na’vi with a long-term view to exterminate them; then when he falls for one of the blue babes, a Na’vi princess called Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and develops a conscience. It all mounts to a pretty spectacularly realised finale.
Avatar runs 20 minutes shy of three hours but it all just whizzes by. All going well, it will spawn a sequel or two (the cast has committed to a trilogy) – and certainly I’ll be first in line to see them. Rating 10/10 – Billy Suter
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