Avatar

If computer animation/manipulation and graphic design are here forward destined to be one of the major elements - alongside writing, acting, photography and music - of cinema, then whatever. Fucking bullshit. So be it. It’s been a long time coming and I’m sure the best filmmakers out there will find a way to make it work for them while still making organic/human work. If nothing else, James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster Avatar makes this animation-is-inevitable shieat a certainty. 

And this is where my problems with the year’s most attention-hogging film begin. If we are to let the digital revolution re-imagine the art of cinema, then we must do so carefully - so as not to erase history or cheapen the future. What I’m saying is this: for all the money, work and time put into Avatar (a film that, to this writer at least, looks as much like an xBox game as it does a film), shouldn’t this shit be more impressive? I’d argue that last year’s cutesy sci-fi Pixar film, Wall-E, looked better on the big screen and will certainly look twice as good on the small screen (look for Avatar’s appeal to really struggle come Blu-ray/DVD time). Wall-E also had a better story and soundtrack. And fuck if this little Disney children’s film didn’t have TWICE the motherfucking edge of Avatar.

But damn. Avatar has only been on screens for two weeks and it’s already made more than Wall-E ever did. It’s made more than Dances With Wolves and Alien combined. But, wait, why all the money talk? We keep hearing about how Avatar had the biggest production and promotion budgets ever. It sells tickets and will sell DVDs and rent well. In it’s first 11 days the film had already brought in $641 million in worldwide ticket sales. This movie, more than any film ever released, is made for money talk.

But does ANY of that money talk matter? Not to me and, aside from inevitable bullshit corporate chatter, not to the film history books. What matters is that Cameron used new technologies and created a film that, to some at least, supposedly looks better than any other film ever made. But I call bullshit on that. To me, it looks like a video game. A new age-y, suburban soft-core daydream for blockbuster fanatics and haters alike. Sci-fi is a hard genre, though, right? A creepy genre. Sci-fi, by nature, is mysterious and weird and fucked up; this is why it works. Even Wall-E was all these things. Not Avatar. Avatar holds your hand with it’s shit score, always telling you how to feel, screaming “it’ll be okay” even at the supposed-to-be uncertain segments of the film.

The lack of imagination here only helps further the argument that graphic designers and computer geeks don’t belong working on films. Cameron, who with Avatar attempts to create his own alien world, is clearly more interested in special effects than he is telling a story or imagination (i.e. succeeding at creating his own world). Simply, he’s more interested in the technical aspects of filmmaking than he is the storytelling. There’s just no arguing, a number of films (City of Lost Children, Dark City, Brazil, Code 46, Minority Report, even old-as-fuck Blade Runner, etc.), despite having incredibly small production budgets and limited technological resources compared to Avatar, have much more interesting visual takes on the future. Even this year’s District 9, an R-rated film with 1/10th the shooting budget of Avatar, is far more fascinating.

And I focus on the look of the film because, frankly, the story blows. It’s a rewrite of Dances With Wolves, at best. Pathetic. There are interesting bits here and there, but Cameron’s ego gets in the way. For example, had a more dynamic actor (say, Ryan Gosling or ANYONE who can show at least SOME emotional depth) played the lead role, well, I may have fallen into the storyline more. And need I list the Michael Bay-like plot holes. And, sure, in sci-fi we don’t discuss plot holes with too much seriousness, but here it’s painful. For example: this intelligent tribe of natives let outsiders into their inner circle despite knowing that the outsiders are controlled by their enemy? Since they KNOW this, why do the humans even need to pretend to be natives? And isn’t that the point of the movie? I just don’t get it … Avatars? Would you let a confirmed alien enemy into your house simply because they looked like you, this while shooting the other confirmed alien enemy with a poisonous arrow? Dumbshits.

Was the 3D good? Sure. Quite the experience. Do I think cinema needs this tool? Oh fudge no. It’s fun enough (especially for kids, I’d imagine), but I like cinematography, and a good cinematographer doesn’t need his work to be souped up on crack to look good. A good cinematographer can make a film in 1978 (I.e. Nestor Almendros, Days of Heaven) and have it still look amazing in 2009.

I could go on. The color palette is suburban and child-ready. (They may as well have been selling pajamas and lunch boxes outside the fucking theater.) The look of the aliens WILL be made fun of from here until forever. The segments with the flying things - both machine and animal - shooting and flying and whatever already look just as bad as the flying things in the Star Wars movies. How is it even possible that they look so awful?!

But hey, if your three favorite movies ever are The Happening, Dances With Wolves and Alien, then James Cameron’s soft-core sci-fi blockbuster is maybe for you. If you listen to all the shit you read on the Internet and are one to get caught up in pop-hype, then fuck with this shit ASAP, before the tide turns. But if you love cinema and don’t need your storytelling to feel like a rollercoaster that holds your hand and sings shallow emotions into your ear, then please, go see something else. Something with some actual acting. A film where the director is less business and mouse-click oriented and more interested in photography, storytelling and - gasp - directing. There are plenty of worthwhile films in theaters right now, do the right thing and see one of those instead. Might I recommend John Hillcoat’s The Road.  (4/10)

Written by G. William Locke

(Note: I want it to be known that I LOVE film. I'll watch anything and often find merit in most of the things I see on screen. I like Encino Man. I fucking LOVE Encino Man. I like all sorts of films - American, commercial, French, independent, art house, Chinese, blockbuster, etc. What I don't like is commercial phenomenons that, in my opinion, set American film back, therefore vindicating the worldview that we're artless resource hogs who don't know how to make art but do know how to spend money. Such is the case with Avatar.  All the money, attention, resources and hype put into Avatar had me running for my bullhorn. Fuck this movie. We're better than this.)