Avatar ain’t as amazing as you say it is
December 22, 2009 at 9:08 pm 12 comments
I’ve been arguing with anyone who comes close to me that Avatar is not a five-star movie, or even a four-star movie. It is, as Time Out New York (but not the rest of the critical world, apparently) asserts, a three-star movie.
For sure, the visuals are fantastic. Cameron has re-invented a part of filmmaking. It is one of the defining movies of the decade.
But that doesn’t cover for the fact that it has a trite and cliche-ridden story with stodgy schoolyard analogies, brazen caricatures, wooden actors and a disappointing ending.
But, no, some people won’t listen. “It’s the best film ever ever,” they practically say.
My question to the Avatar-is-five-star crew is: what if someone next does a film that captures the same visual (almost visceral) experience that Avatar has, but couples it with a story that is even slightly more complex than a tiddly wink? If Avatar gets five stars, it’s impossible to improve on, right?
So it’s nice to find some affirmation of my views on one my new favourite internet web sites on the World Wide Web: The Awl. I quote their contributor:
the really worst thing is the ham-fistedness of Avatar’s alternate history. Okay, so this time the Native Americans are able to throw off the European oppressor. Note well, however, that l’homme sauvage, for all the purity of his Native Wisdom, is still quite helpless without a white man to show him what the hell to do. So what if this “hero” “goes native,” just like in Dances With Wolves? (Even as he goes about gathering “the horse people of the plains” to assist him.) It still takes a white man to tame the really BIG dragon, and to outfox the enemy.
He will also take the “best” woman, the noblest, the highest born, the smartest, whose token resistance will dwindle its sorry way from faux-contempt to near-drooling adoration in a matter of days. Her former man will die, and her father will, too; her whole civilization will lie in ruins. She will pretty much get down on her knees to thank this white man, anyway
I heard James Cameron tell MTV that he’s bringing to the cinema films he wished he had when he was a 14-year-old. That figures.
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1.
Spike | December 22, 2009 at 11:31 pm
I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing but posing a question:
Given all of the information that one has to take in during the course of the film about the planet, the natives, the technology and given the eye-popping effects that fill the screen from edge to edge, do you really think that someone could successfully combine that with a deeply complex storyline?
Not saying they can’t. But I think it would be too much for the average audience to absorb. And when you are spending a reported $300-$400 million, you need to be able to attract a mass audience.
I think Cameron had a vision of a world he wanted to create. He hung this on variations of the same themes he’s almost always used. And he succeeded in what he set out to do.
That being said, I don’t think it’s a 5* film either but I rate it more highly than you – because each of us has chosen to rate it on different criteria. Which makes us both equally right.
I don’t think the storyline in Dances With Wolves was that unique and neither is the “white guy leads the way” theme in Hollywood. Hollywood still makes films for predominantly white audiences and they figure that any film about non-whites (or non-humans for that matter) needs a white protagonist for the audience to identify with. Last Samurai another very recent example. Any movie about the civil rights movement in the American south that’s not made by Spike Lee. Haven’t seen Invictus yet but I have a suspicion it’s the same thing since Matt Damon’s there.
(You can tell I don’t have much to do tonight and am looking for ways to fill up time. This helped! Thanks!)
2.
hkham | December 22, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Thanks for the comment, Spike. It’s a really good one, so it’s worth sacrificing all that pesky sleep for.
For what it’s worth, I do think it’s possible to build a complex and still commercially successful storyline that isn’t trite into a blockbuster of this scale (The Matrix did it successfully; The Lord of the Rings edited an already great story effectively), but I do agree with you that Cameron achieved what he set out to do.
And I’m less bothered by the fact it’s a traditional white hegemonic mindset that prevails than the fact it’s just a sadly predictable, cliche, and sometimes cringe-worthy plot that drags an otherwise awesome experience down.
I think this is a film to be considered in the same vein as Star Wars, and to be lauded as tremendously successful in that class. But for its storytelling failings, I think it remains in a class below The Godfather and other fully rounded films of genius.
3.
Tom | December 23, 2009 at 1:33 am
“Given all of the information that one has to take in during the course of the film about the planet, the natives, the technology and given the eye-popping effects that fill the screen from edge to edge, do you really think that someone could successfully combine that with a deeply complex storyline?”
Every work takes place in its own world, and it’s a rookie mistake to spend all your time on world-building and figure your audience will put their need for “a story” aside if the details are rendered faithfully enough. This is not the first movie to take place on another planet, after all.
Also, how long should you have to take to say, “this is a world where horses have gills”? It’s hardly the sort of point you eschew a storyline for.
4.
Patrick | December 23, 2009 at 5:30 am
Like TONY, the AV Club guys are also swimming against the tide on Avatar.
Review: http://www.avclub.com/articles/avatar,36459/
Podcast: http://www.avclub.com/articles/avatar,36478/
I thought the plotting and dialogue were risible, and that Cameron borrowed far too frequently from his previous films (like the My Heart Will Go On redux theme song).
The effects were occasionally stunning, but more so the 3D than the motion capture stuff (which too often looking like a video game).
5.
hkham | December 23, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Tom, you (are) the man.
I’ve just checked your site, and in particular your insightful commentary on Avatar. Brilliant stuff. I particularly admire your willingness to call out the Papyrus font. That shit had gone on too long.
Consider your blog added to my G-reader.
6.
Housemonster | December 23, 2009 at 6:05 pm
McKenzie
No, Cameron isn’t Tarantino. He isn’t Coppola. He isn’t Joel Coen and definitely isn’t Ethan. Jackson is not invited to this dance. Please keep the Hobbit pornographer away from the adults’ table during this discussion.
And, no question, If a rogue bolt from a lightning storm had fused those men and Cameron into a giant brain with ten eyes and a potty mouth, that brain would have done a better job of Avatar.
But none of those giants could have surpassed what Cameron did so damn well in Avatar – creating the most immerse, sensory cinematic experience of our generation.
Movie making, unlike, say, synchronized swimming, does not require a judges tick in every neatly ruled box to get a perfect score.
Film making is more like music.
Led Zep’s live album met with almost universal acclaim.
http://apps.metacritic.com/music/artists/ledzeppelin/howthewestwaswon
Few would argue they are lyrical poets in the same league as a Dylan or Darnielle.
Yet almost all who attended their concerts thought of nothing but the music during the sweaty hours they were there.
I am a little sad for people whose critical voice was still switched on in Avatar, coughing and tutting while others looked around with large eyes – grabbing the diaphanous anemones floating between aisles.
That critical voice must have the unbreakable certainty of a Vulcan.
Mine was clubbed over the head by the astonishing beauty, and did little but giggle and sway for the next almost three hours.
It was like being 10 again. But with money, and really good fake ID.
But then, Hamish, I remember we are not even talking about the same movie. The message is the medium.
You watched it on a pub sized plasma. A theatre where they gave out binoculars rather than 3D glasses.
I give it a ****1/2, but ***** can easily be justified.
Giving it **** are those who come from the land where people can’t taste coffee, alcohol doesn’t make you drunk, and your heartbeat has the steady rhythm of a metronome ticking atop an old mahogany piano.
7.
Charles Frith | December 27, 2009 at 4:58 pm
This has cheered me up no end. I intended to see Avatar yesterday but my date wasn’t keen on animation so I plumped for Sherlock.
That was a mistake. Downey Jr wheels out his arms dealing loveable rogue character from Iron man (which I loved) for this movie and adds a fist fighting, sunglasses wearing flavour to the story, which is as welcome as pop tarts in Victorian England.
8.
Don | January 6, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I haven’t seen Avatar so I don’t know if James Cameron has taken movie-making to another level, but I do know that pretentious movie critiques have reached new heights thanks to Housemonster’s contribution.
9.
HK Ham | January 6, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Yeah! Let’s jump on the pretentious Housemonster.
By the way, Housemonster, I wouldn’t grace Avatar with four stars. I’d give it three.
Fantastic immersive film-going experience, even on a pub plasma. The story, script, dialogue, characterisation and acting can go into the compost.
10.
Housemonster | January 6, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Thanks Don. That’s very sweet of you to say.
11.
Josh | January 24, 2010 at 6:41 am
Avatar is a 5 star movie and I will tell you why. This movie does not deserve a 5/5 rating for the plot, which was described to me as “Dances with Aliens”, just a spin on a classic. Nor does the movie deserve 5/5 rating for the Fern Gully, and First Nations type political message, but for the pure and simple fact that this movie was the first to develop such stunning digital 3d technology using circular polarization. It is on the scale of movies such as The Wizard of Oz (first movie in colour) and the Star Wars first 3 movies (incredible advance in special effects). For this reason Avatar deserves a 5 star rating because it was the innovator and will change the landscape of movies and films forever.
My 2 cents
12.
TIF | January 29, 2010 at 2:52 am
Agreed it is a three star movie but is is a beginning and i eel that better will follow in this new decade.