Review: Avatar

James Cameron. He directed Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens, and eventually Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time. And then he went "underground", so to speak: he didn't direct a single feature film for wide release after that. Though he did make a documentary or two about aquatic life. And he may or may not have found the lost tomb of Jesus. (probably not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lost_tomb_of_jesus) And now he's back, with an allegorical film about the destruction of nature and native homelands by big business in one of the most expensive films ever made. It's clear: either this film would be incredible, or it would be a flop--you can't have a middle-ground with a backstory like that. And I'm placing my vote firmly in the 'incredible' camp.
The film is about the works of a mining company on an alien planet named Pandora in 2154 AD, and the conflicts with the natives--the Na'vi--over land destruction. The central protagonist is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a self-proclaimed "jarhead" from Earth who is paralyzed from the waist down. He was not trained for his mission--it was initially his twin brother's; but after his brother is killed in a mugging, the army asks Jake to take his brother's place: his DNA is important. Jake seems to have some disdain for the job, as he would become a hired mercenary of sorts, but agrees because the money he is promised would help him walking again.
So, what's the job? The mining company wants the Na'vi to move: one group called the Omaticaya clan in particular lives over the richest seam of unobtainium on the planet, which is worth $20 million a kilo--whatever that means in the future. (At any rate, it's a lot.) To do that, they can employ their military might--but they don't want to. Not because they've grown a conscience, heavens no: it would generate bad press, which they don't want, but they'd be willing to handle if it comes to that. As Parker Selfridge, the company administrator, (Giovanni Ribisi) says: "the only thing worse than bad press is bad first-quarter earnings...I don't make the rules, you know how it is." Well, I guess that clears his conscience!
Moving on, to avoid that conflict, they have a group of scientists on the military base that try to engage the Na'vi by having people control "avatars" (hence the title) specially made for each of them that are composed mainly of Na'vi DNA. By spending the days controlling these avatars, their goal is to convince the natives to move, so that the company doesn't have to go to war--at least, that's their stated intent. Sigourney Weaver's character, Dr. Grace Augustine, leads the scientists. She wants to understand the Na'vi and seems to understand their connection to Pandora, and goes along with the mining company because they pay the bills.
One of the most obvious criticisms to make of this film is that the characters are caricatures. Aside from Jake, just about every character in the film fits a storywriting cliche. There's Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the tough military leader who doesn't believe Augustine and the avatars will achieve anything with diplomacy, and is intent on preparing for battle--picture Lieutenant Surge. Mo'at (C. C. H. Pounder), the Na'vi religious leader, is a typical old mystic lady, braided hair and all. Eytucan (Wes Studi), Mo'at's husband and tribal leader, is a tough, wisened advisor of sorts; if this film was centred in Japan, he'd be the wise tutor to a student. And Weaver puts a lot into her acting here, but her character is the same tough-woman-leading-team-in-combat-situations thing she's been doing since, well, Aliens. Without getting into detail, the plot is pretty predictable, too.
These would usually be major sticking points, but I didn't care, and successfully ignored the part of my brain predicting coming plot points. Jake is eventually taught the ways of the Omaticaya clan by Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), the tribe princess, and you come to understand the tribe, and why the earth is so important to them. And nothing sells that point better than the visuals: if you go to see this film, see it in 3D. It looks fantastic: James Cameron obviously spent the years he did on this film not only perfecting the animation, but thinking of all kinds of creative designs for the plant and animal life on Pandora. The nature here is varied, fantastic, and almost always stunning. This is key: he managed to sell the idea that Pandora is something majestic worth preserving to me, and I live in a cement box. Well, my university room's not that bad, I suppose, but the closest I come to nature in here is the potted plant my roommate keeps by the window. After he convinced me of that, everything flowed, because when the Na'vi expressed outrage at the intrusion of these "aliens", I felt the same way. That's probably the greatest achievement of his allegory: I saw how utterly wrong the destruction of nature and native homeworlds can be. So not only did the nature scenes strike me--and there are many of those--but because of that, the plot began to grab me as well.
All those years we went without hearing from Cameron were put to good use. Welcome back, James.