Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi
Directed by: James Cameron
Certificate: 12A
Runtime: 162 minutes
UK release date: 17 December 2009:
In a nutshell: GO. BUY. IT. NOW.
James Cameron has been locked up in a big shed in Hollywood for the past four years for good reason. Avatar is a genuine, breathtaking cinematic milestone.
Writing on Film24 earlier as the days ticked down to launch date, I'd said there were reasons to be worried. The least of my worries was that Cameron wouldn't be able to technically pull this off, and indeed, visually Avatar is magnificent - 2 hours and 41 minutes of the finest, photorealistic 3-D we've ever seen. Animations, particularly UP and Bolt have made big leaps in 3-D in 2009, but Avatar is something else - the first time sitting in a cinema seat where you feel yourself falling into the screen. If not completely immersed in the picture, then more involved in it than ever before.
A big part of this immersion is the hypnotically beautiful world that Cameron has created with Pandora. The planet where most of the action takes place is inhabited by a range of deadly organisms hard-wired to kill anything in sight. They don't half look good though - hammerhead rhinos with peacock feathers, shiny black vicious dogs, multi-coloured pterydactyls. These animals roam around in an environment that's part rainforrest, part Santa's grotto - a world that comes alive at night it fluorescent pinks and purples. It's here that the films central character arrives, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic marine who's consciousness is transferred into the body of a big, blue alien - his avatar.
The plan, backed by a ruthless mining company, is for him to infiltrate the Na'vi tribe, more blue aliens, so they can steal their precious mineral reserves. But then a kind-of Dances With Wolves plot unfolds as he falls for Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who shows him a simpler way of living, or surviving, on Pandora.
The other big concern I'd flagged up before seeing this was that it would be hard, impossible even, to get emotionally involved with two main characters that are, basically, flat-faced blue cat people arsing around in the branches of a giant tree, riding flying dragons and falling in love. The same worry shaped much of a late summer internet backlash once the first snippets of footage were released. It looked daft, and as a few people pointed out, it whiffed of Jar Jar Binks. To be honest, the Na'vi do take a bit of getting used to. By definition, they're alien, out of this world creatures. But even so, there's a certain cold strangeness to them that means you're well into the first hour before you can relax in their company. When you do though, it's a trippy, magical ride to the end credits.
I'm going to add a caveat here, cowardly as it may be to leave a get-out-clause from a glowing review. We're being swept up in technically a piece of genius here that almost certainly hides a story that on second or third viewing will reveal itself to be... well, utterly bonkers. Like the eco-babble about interconnected trees, the Na'vi physically connecting with other creatures by fusing ponytails, floating mountains powered by 'unobtanium'. Then there's the dialogue which, especially when uttered by Stephen Lang's gruff Colonel Quaritch, is at time painfully clunky. Remember the idea for Avatar has been knocking around in Cameron's head for 15 years, which explains some of the rather macho 90's insults - "Shut your pie hole!" barks Quaritch at one stage.
Given just how fantastically entertaining it all is, it seems peevish to go on. So I won't. Simon Pegg after seeing this tweeted it was a "game changer". And he's right. The question is; given the time and money that's gone into Avatar, not to mention the perfectionism and incredible drive of James Cameron... how many directors can play this game?
Avatar is available to buy now on DVD and Blu-ray.
