Avatar: Ten Stars
February 9, 2010 • written by Rankin Dam
Image is property of Twentieth Century Fox
Perfect! Exhilarating! Awe-inspiring! No matter which words critics use to praise James Cameron’s Avatar, the message is always the same. This movie is incredible! In fact, the movie is so spectacular, that the words of praise do it no justice.
Avatar’s story is, essentially, a scientific remake of the historical dispute between settlers and Native Americans. While this age old idea may seem stale and overused, its presentation becomes quite appealing when set in the Sci-Fi universe. To summarize the story as briefly as possible; the human race is in the middle of an energy crisis. They have found a unique mineral on a planet known as Pandora. The humans colonize the planet and come to a shaky peace with its natives, the Na’vi. I won’t reveal anymore details for fear of spoiling the experience.
James Cameron is notorious for hiring obscure actors to perform in his movies. How many people have heard of Sam Worthington? Despite the unknown faces, the acting is always solid. So solid, that every character was believable as a human, even those that weren’t human. The acting, though splendid, was still not the most awe-inspiring feature of the film.
In this day and age, everyone has, at some point, held audience to a 3-D film. The technology involved in three-dimensional productions is so impressive that people shy away from protruding fingers for fear of catching some disease. However, the movies behind the visuals often contain half-baked stories that look stupid without the 3-D visuals. As such, when people heard about Avatar being rendered in 3-D, there were more than a few murmurs of mutiny aboard the ships headed for Pandora. These restless grumblings were soundly silenced by the movie’s debut.
The 3-D effects of Avatar do not throw missiles and spears through the screens of the theater. In fact, the visuals act in an opposing manner. Instead of making things stick out of the screen, the environments, characters, and objects are given depth. It almost feels like looking into an exhibit in the reptile house of the local zoo. It allows one to gauge distances more accurately within the film itself. It… is honestly quite difficult to put to words.
Movie-goers may notice that everything in Avatar looks incredibly real. The reason Avatar has such astounding CGI (computer generated imaging) is the fact that the movie was developed using a new filming technique. Normally, a film with CGI utilizes green screens that go through editing at the end of the filming process. Avatar was made in reverse. The world of Pandora was created digitally, before filming even began. As actors moved about the set, speaking their lines and such, they were plugged into the digital world of Pandora. This process allowed director James Cameron to instantly preview the scene as it would appear in the finished product, which allowed for improvement on the spot.
I would like to make a personal statement to conclude this review. Just like most critics around the world, I dislike giving a numerical score to the material I review. It is impossible to summarize educated opinions with a mere number. On the other hand, Avatar makes it easy. Avatar earns a 10 out of 10. In fact, there is only one bad thing about this movie. Avatar is so good, that any films after it will seem boring.
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