Saturday, 26 December 2009
Is this James Cameron's masterpiece? No. He'd like to think so, but it isn't
After all, he's the man who directed Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens, and Titanic, so the bar is set high. He also directed the awful True Lies, and the less than amazing Piranha II, though.
“Avatar” is pure sci-fi fantasy. In my mind, it's a moving Yes album cover, a bizarre super-real alien landscape, chock full of military porn, body-lifters, homages to Cameron's past obsessions, and with clear nods to Aliens, The Abyss, and perhaps most obviously, Cameron's usual philosophy of the greedy military industrial complex messing with a lifeform it does not understand.
Storywise, it's not original at all : “Dune With Wolves”, for one, the story of a hostile occupying force migrating to the enemy, and becoming a saviour. I'm not giving anything away with this. What “Avatar” is, is a vast, ambitious, derivative science fiction epic that exists in a world of visual richness but narrative poverty.
The good? It is often fabulous. Nobody does 'Military Porn' like Cameron : the fetishistic obsession with machines, units, troopers, Mech Droids – it's beautiful. Just like watching “Aliens” for the first time, the long,loving pans over models, the gracious views over the machines. That's the first 20 minutes : and after that, there's the 'action'. To call it action is an understatement : unlike most action movies, where ultimately you're watching a bunch of computer generated stuff fight another bunch of computer generated stuff without really caring about the Allspark, or the Unobtainium, or the WhateverTheHellItIs, here, the plot – thin and derivative as it is – is sketched in such terms as to be almost engaging. This action matters. And that is why it works : it is not merely an individual's life and death, but a cultural apocalypse at stake, a tribe fighting against heathen developers in the Amazon, or the fully-realised visually stunning world of Pandora, in the quest for Element 404.
Yes, the magnificent object that drives the plot is called Unobtainium. It's a knowing but obvious nod.
Cameron's message is obvious : as obvious as a gigantic Vegas neon sign. There are blunt parallels to Iraq, Vietnam, even fucking “Return Of The Jedi”, where the natives do battle with a technologically advanced but spiritually different race. Cameron clearly thinks that capitalism, as it is, is a retarded ideology, that values only money over all other values : think Skynet, Weyland-Yutani, and The Great Ship Company That Made The Titanic. The battle is also clearly set with the phrases “shock and awe” and “war on terror” in it. The message here is blunt : maybe the Enemy have a point and aren't an enemy as such, but a willingly misunderstood culture.
With a message so blunt, it's no surprise that the characterisation is more functional than fully formed. Sam Worthington – the lead – is an avatar in himself, a projection of a half-realised character, which he acquits as fully as he can but there is not a large amount of raw material for him to build with, except as a man designed for one purpose, who cannot fulfill that, seeking an alternate destiny. The Navi' follow the usual character arcs – the skeptic, the believe, the betrayed – etc. The main bad guy, a cartoon cutout General prounounced “WarItch”, is nothing more than a grumpy, grey-haired Duke Nuk'Em.
Sigourney Weaver meanwhile, is a sex vixen. Shame then, that the film also has perhaps two of the most incredulous screen moments since “The Matrix's” Rave-Off/Sex Combo.
Certainly, “Avatar” is the greatest technical achievement in cinema yet. Not since “Terminator 2” reimagined special effects has any film quite so definitively shown the competition for the amateurs they are. The Navi – the alien race mankind is battling in “Avatar” - being made of pixels is stunningly real. It's a quantum leap forward in versimilitude. Even if they aren't real, you can believe they are real. As real as you or I.
Avatar is not a great work of narrative : it is an experience, an event, a cinematic milestone. It will not live in the psyche as Terminator or T2 or Aliens, because the tale at the heart of it is not as immortal or enduring as those films – it is however, undoubtedly, Cameron's finest technical achievement yet and a superior, albeit imperfect, addition to the SF canon.Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment 1.0 beta 2! |
