Avatar – BC

4 stars

Sam Worthington stars in James Cameron’s digital masterpiece.

Rating: PG
Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephan Lang

What’s the story?
In the year 2154, humans are mining the planet of Pandora which is rich in precious minerals. Humans use Avatars to communicate with the indigenous people of Pandora, the Na'vi. An Avatar is a Na'vi-esque creature that can be controlled by genetically matched humans. Jake Sully (Worthington) is a paraplegic ex-marine, who receives an Avatar because of his identical twin dying; he is the first non-scientist to ever become a part of the Avatar program. He assimilates himself with the Na'vi better than any scientist has in a long time. As he spends more time with the indigenous people, he starts to lose his sense of reality in the human world and gain one with the Omaticayu tribe. He is left to chose between the humans with whom he has grown up, or the Na'vi where he can walk, run and ride dragons.

Why see it?
The computer graphics in Avatar are simply incredible, beautiful and second to none. The digital 3D is ground-breaking technology. People will look back at Avatar as a movie that revolutionized the way we look at digital effects and 3D. The movie as a whole is aesthetically pleasing and a pleasure to watch.

The plot is very easy to get into and follow, not to mention the epic nature of the motion picture gives the whole story a sense of utter importance. The protagonists do a very good job of coming across as ordinary people making it easy to associate with and root for them.

Problems?
The shortcomings of Avatar are pretty obvious to any audience member. The story is very linear, predictable and resemblant of movies such as Dances With Wolves. The script was quite bland and for lack of better words, sounded bad. The actors do a good job of trying to make up for it, but for a movie that has been in the making for 15 years, the script and plot were simply not up to snuff.

All in all:
A visually incredible movie which unfortunately was not as amazing in other areas.