Over the weekend I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to watch the life changing film Avatar, which as you may or may not know, was created by renowned filmmaker James Cameron. I have to say it was one of, if not the, most wasted moments of my life I have ever spent in a dark room crowded with people.
For months on end I have been hearing, reading, and been plain bombarded about how the King of The World (look it up) has been creating this turd of a film for over a decade. Not only has he just been making a film, but he has also been making some form of revolutionary 3-D filmmaking technology that will revolutionize film as we know it. I've read quotes from such esteemed filmmakers as Soderbergh, Spielberg among countless others, stating that it will blow our minds away and change the way we see movies forever.
The entire time I sat through this horrid cliched mess, I kept waiting for this amazing film to appear. You know, the one everyone kept talking about all over the internet, in print magazines, on television for almost a year. The film that was a visual splendor, that had action, romance, drama, intensity, 3-D visual splendor that would make me give up sex. Instead I was treated to a mish-mash of characters that had been borrowed/stolen from previous Cameron films, as was the production design, music and nonsensical plot, and the most laughable dialogue I have heard in god knows how long. In between all of this I was given a fairly high dose of a hallucinagenic, night-brite infested nightmare. This was promptly followed by Dark Elves riding Pokemon through plot holes big enough to fit the reputation of 12 dozen John Holmes through.
I know that you are dying for me to elaborate so I won't waste any time.
I'll start with the easiest, which is the production design. The majority of the futuristic quasi-helicopters that fly throughout the jungle planet of pandora, and the mech combat suits, are literal carbon copies of the same production design used in Aliens. They just added a little 'umph' (more guns and length) to diferentiate it. When the reveal shots first...uh, revealed all of this
futuristic technology on screen, the first thought that popped into my head was "they didn't even try". If I was an extremely influential man of film, spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and over a decade of my time on making a film, I would try a
teensy bit harder on trying to make things look more unique then just putting a cockpit from a gunship from a prior movie I made on a shoebox and then call it a big gunship. That's just me though.
When it came time to be introduced to the characters I noticed something even more glaringly familiar. Almost every one of them was taken from a previous film made by our King of The World. Sigourney Weaver's character is the bitchy scientist that Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio plays from the 'Abyss'. Michelle Rodriguez is the rough and tough female marine from 'Aliens'. Giovanni Ribisi is the scuzzy corporate man we love to hate that Paul Reiser played in 'Aliens'. The nerdy guy is the nerdy guy from 'True Lies'. And good old Sam Worthington is a combination of everyone! He's part Michael Biehn from Terminator for his man on a mission enthusiasm, part Jack from 'Titanic' for his I love you more than being a bum/marine personality, as well as Ed Harris from the 'Abyss' for his I will put my hand in a toilet so it turns blue to get my wedding ring and do anything for you attitude. As for the gummy bear aliens themselves, they just seemed like the cast of 'Dances with Wolves', which I know isn't a James Cameron film, but hey, the shoe fit.
As for the story, well, that's a whole can of wastefulness that I shouldn't even mention it. But I will. I won't nitpick the millions of problems, plot holes, and obvious film comparisons (Fern Gully) that are apparent in this
epic masterpiece, I'll leave that to the rest of the internet. What I will do is tell you why the script is written to be a predictable mess.
The problem with James cameron is that he doesn't so much make films as he does make new technology for film itself, and then decides to slap a story to fit around it. If you watch the documentaries on most of his films, which are available on DVD, you'll see that he spends most of his production trying to push the envelope making bigger and better special effects (T2), immersive visual environments for the audience (Aliens, Abyss, Titanic), while simultaneously trying to pioneer new technology for making films(Abyss, Titanic, Avatar...apparently). The film itself? Well, that will just evolve out of the awesome world and technology that was created because it is just that powerful. Right? No. Somehow along the way it all gets lost in the razmataz of a special effects jizzfest, which is sad for us as an audience because we don't get to see any of that creativity at all. All we get to see in Avatar's case is a bottom of the barrel story that has been told before, and better, by other directors. As I mentioned above, James Cameron's hope was that you as an audience would be so enveloped by this magical world that he created you wouldn't give an Elephant's shit that the story is so basic that you feel lik you are having your hand held through the entire movie with someone telling you what's going to happen next.
In the end that's exactly what avatar is. A film that is set up for cameron to show off whatever revolutionary technology he's made, for him to publicly stroke himself for all of us to see, to show off what he's made. The problem is that the whole thing looks like a bad direct to dvd childrens movie. Nothing in the film comes off as fresh, new or quote un-quote revolutionary in any way at all. You can't even argue that the 3-D elements added to the film or breathed any life into it. Matter of fact, the 3-D is practically non existent, only adding up to probably a few minutes. Oddly enough I've read everywhere now, online and in print, where people make excuses for that, making comments along the lines of "what's beautiful is that you don't notice it", and "that it's not in your face". Bullshit! If I pay $14 for a 3-D show, I want to see bullet casings fly into my damn face and blue alien innards splattered all over the screen. Not the date and time of a video log that Sam 'useless' Worthington gives, float one inch in front of his face. That is the future of film? People see that crap when they're on ecstacy!
So why doesn't anyone notice that this film is nothing more than a shot of phlem that James Cameron has spat in our faces? Why do all of the critics in the world keep praising this as the most amazing thing since Kraft singles? Every review you will find of 'Avatar' points out all of the films flaws, yet still gives it high praises. They all say something along the lines of "Yeah, the story is predictable and been told hundreds of times, the characters are hollow and typical Cameron fare, the majority of the movie is unimaginative and cliched, but the last few minutes are really neat looking, and that's what Cameron excels at. It's the best film this year!". Strange, I remember about a dozen movies this year that fit that exact same description, but got a failing grade. 2012, G.I. Joe and Transformers 2 being the most recent.
Still, why is this happening with James Cameron's crappy Avatar film? I am of the opinion that Cameron is one of those directors that, regardless of what terrible films he makes in the future, will always gets a free pass because of the films he's made in the past. It's like a form of guilt for critics. You can't say his film is bad, he made the first two Terminator movies! You can't not like the bad love story in this movie, he made the romantic comedy Titanic! All of his movies make money and are semi enjoyable, so this has to be despite that we know betteer, and we must obey! OBEY!
Yes, we are all very thankful for Cameron's previous films, some of which have become staples in the Sci-Fi Action genre. Terminator still stands the test of time, and Aliens is the textbook definition of a good followup film, though you really have to grin and bear it when it comes to the dialogue. But have you really stopped to watch any of his other films lately? Trust me, if you value your childhood memories, you don't want to. They are wretched. Aliens, while visually impressive, is filled with the most laughable dialogue and wooden performances known to man. The abyss is just...you pray for that damn crew to drown the entire film, just because of the acting and dialogue they deliver. Terminator 2, remember that movie? When that came out and took the world by storm! I remembered it being the best action movie ever made, but once I put myself through the hell of watching it again, it ended up being the most watered down action movie, whose sole purpose was only to set up for key moments to show off liquid terminator moments and that's it. Even the high on a pedestal director's cut version blows.
I wouldn't be surprised, for review puroposes, if you were to replace Avatar's credits with Dean Devlin/Roland Emmerich or Brett Ratner, the film wouldn't get such high praise from critics at all. Then if you were to do the old switcheroo back, people would feel like asses and make excuses to praise the movie to high heaven. And that's just it, critics are making excuses for Cameron, like they want him to be a good filmmaker because their memories of his older films are still firm in their heads.
It was the same case with Titanic. Terrible acting, script, dialogue, story and special effects that were even bad for the time. Yet somehow everyone thought it was the most glorious thing ever made, right next to the lightbulb! People would get physically upset when you said that Titanic was a horrible film, they would literally tear up! Everyone wanted that movie to be the most romantic, epic, action eye sore they had ever seen. Instead it was just Romeo & Juliet on the Exxon Valdez. Fortunately for James Cameron he had the sweet Swan Song of Celine Dion to entice everyone to his disaster of a film, and that worked like a charm.
I mean come on, how can this scene not be bad:
EXTERIOR NIGHT
ROSE lays safely on a giant wooden door, with plenty of room for two, bobbing along the freezing ocean as she watches her one night lay, JACK, that somehow taught her the meaning of true love (orgasm?) overnight, freeze to death.
Seeing a way out of this one night stand via rescue boat, she lifts her heavy head up, barely managing to let the last words of lust escape her lips.
ROSE
I'll never let go!
JACK'S frozen body makes a soft 'bladoop' sound as ROSE lets go. JACK'S frozen body slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean even though it should float to the top. Science means nothing when it comes to love. And love means nothing to ROSE when it comes to survival.
That's all I had to say, I just really hated Titanic. Back to Avatar.
One of the problems I keep running into, and reading on other blogs, is that when someone mentions they saw the film and disliked it someone is instantly there to say "You need to see it in 3-D to truly experience it". Okay, fine. Now that same person sees it in 3-D and says they still disliked it, and sure as shit someone pops out of nowhere with tears in their eyes, bible in hand to proclaim that "The only true way to behold this wonder of cinema is in IMAX 3-D". Huh. I was always under the impression that the only way to truly experience a film was visually, with your eyes.
I have always had the oh so arrogant opinion that a good film should stand on it's own merits. That any gimmicks, or add-ons should only enhance the experience of a film, not be a necessity. If it becomes a necessity to watch the film then you are robbing the viewer of the enjoyment of your own film, plus from an artist's standpoint you're castrating your own film. Now I am speaking of a film that was made in three different formats, not one that was made specifically in 3-D and only 3-D. That I can understand. Something like Captain EO can only be watched in 3-D, not on Betamax, it was never made for that purpose. Avatar on the other hand was purposefully made in 3 different flavors for everyones enjoyment, but apparently nobody can truly enjoy it without spending that extra $30 and run down to their local IMAX 3-D experience theatre. That is corporate money whoring bullshit, which ironically also happens to be one of the messages in the film: that corporate money whoring is bad.
What aggravates me most about this film is not that fact that it's terrible, which I knew it would be, but the fact that no one seems to acknowledge that it is. Like I said before everyone keeps making excuses for it to be a great film. No matter what I say, the easily impressed of the world will flock towards this methane filled turd in droves, and exclaim it was the coolest thing in the world, just like they do with every movie of the week that comes out of Michael Bay's or Brett Ratner's ass.
Finally I want to leave you with some links. You may have already heard of these two sites, but this is where I got the majority of my feedback on Avatar and the impressions from fans, critics and other filmmakers. Of course I went to other websites, but there links can be easily found through these two sites.
/Film
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