Avatar Review

James Cameron makes his return to feature films with his magnum opus: Avatar. He wrote the script back in the 90s and has been working on the film for 4 years. After his success with Titanic, it makes sense that Cameron would do a project like this. Nevertheless, is it worth all the hype and the wait? Well, the answer is complicated, at least from my perspective.


Avatar is one of those films that I left with mixed reactions. It is, without a doubt, visually stunning and every dollar of it’s $230 million budget is displayed on screen. The 3D format enhances the visceral level of the visual world that Cameron has created. This is the reason that you should experience the film in a digital 3D theater at least once. There is an impressive sense of detail in every aspect of the planet Pandora and it's ecosystem.

However, for all of Avatar’s technical excellence, it lacks interesting characters and storyline. It seems that Cameron forgot to polish up his script after he took it off the shelf. The characters and plot of Avatar are too 2 dimensional and are not compatible with the 3 dimensional world that they inhabit. Now, I am not saying that this type of film should have a complicated plot, but it should not feel overtly clichéd and familiar. Sometimes you have to take a simple plot structure and find new things to make it singular. Unfortunately, I do not feel like Avatar did that, it was too familiar and not inventive in the way that the aesthetics of the film were. The characters are a little better off, but they lack depth and charisma. The culture of the Na’vi itself is interesting and detailed; conversely, each character fits rigidly into a boring archetype. Nonetheless, for all of Avatar’s flaws, it is still an entertaining ride. For a 2 hour and half running time, it moves at a quick and steady pace.

So, where do I stand on Avatar? Well I like the film for it’s virtues and have come to terms with it’s flaws. I think it accomplishes so much, in spite of itself. Maybe, it is because it represents it’s inspiration from B science fiction stories of paperback novels in such an operatic style. I will say that it has provided me with a new catch phrase to add to my lexicon, “freaking daisy cutters.”