Review: 'Avatar' is spectacular

Film: Avatar (U/A)
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver
Rating: *** and 1/2

The movie sincerely needs to be reviewed at two levels. One at the technological marvel that it creates, and the other at its sub-par story line, which though decent, brings down the overall film’s quality.

James Cameron apparently thought of the idea in 1995, but waited all this while for the technology to implement it. His PR machinery has proudly claimed that Avatar will revolutionise cinema-watching forever. You cannot disagree with them about how this completely alters the movie-watching experience. You can literally see the record $300 million being invested in the production of the film. Unlike many other 3D movies, here, the special effects are not gimmicky at all. There is no poking and throwing things, but the effects draw you into the story, on to this fantastic moon called Pandora, with its exquisite beauty and life, and makes you believe in it.

To get to its slightly hackneyed plot, with quite a few tacky moments, the year is 2154 and Earth is dying. The humans have established a mining colony in the beautiful and dangerous Pandora, looking for the mineral Unobtainium that is worth $20 million per kilogram, and can save the planet. However, the largest deposit of this mineral is right under Pandora’s blue-skinned indigenous humanoid race Na’vi’s large forest settlement. They are unwilling to move, and ‘the corporation’ has embarked on a mission to win their trust and ask them to leave to avoid “bad press”. And if not, to forget about the “bad press” and use their military might to evict them. Thus to win their trust, the corporation funds the project which creates a human-Na’vi hybrid, called the 'avatar', where a human’s consciousness is linked into the body of a living, breathing body that resembles the Na’vi. The idea being, that they will get acquainted with each other and the avatars be able to convince the Na’vis to move out. The team of avatars is led by Dr Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and also includes Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an ex-Marine confined to a wheelchair, who becomes part of the Na’vi group and falls in love with another Na’vi, Neytiri (Zoë Saldan). The Na’vis of course refuse to resettle, and Jake Sully, now in love with the Na’vi sides with them in the war.

The plot is rather too simplistic to ‘change cinema forever’. You might as well see the Na’vis as American Indians, whose land is being taken away from newly-arrived Europeans, or see the Na’vis as developing countries and ‘the corporation’ as the US. One cannot miss the speech of the human’s military commander, also the villain who, towards the end, declares very Bush-like, "Our survival relies on pre-emptive action. We will fight terror, with terror" and “We will use shock and awe”. Perhaps one resonance Cameron didn’t think of but will be felt here, is what is happening within India, where land is being acquired by large corporations with the help of the government at the cost of the tribals who reside in them.

To come back to the special effects of the movie, there are simply so many moments that will leave the viewer spellbound with its detailing. Perhaps the most being the avatars and the Na’vis themselves, every subtle movement of their faces can be seen because the technology used is so exquisite; one can see the actors give real performances, and even recognise Worthington, Weaver and Saldana.

It is not like some banal machine turning into a robot, ala Transformers. Cameron sure knows how to harness technology for story-telling. And though the story is not as original as Terminator 2 or as heart-warming as Titanic, it sure is thrilling.