*Originally written April 17th, 2016*
"All Looks, No Soul"
Well, he we are, the highest grossing film of all time. The insane phenomenon that was Avatar and 7 years on it still holds up about the same as I remember. Visually incredible but remarkably hollow and in all honesty, kinda bland.
Avatar follows Sam Worthington's Jake Sully, a paralysed soldier who takes his dead brother's place in the 'Avatar' programme, an experiment that allows you to transfer your conciseness to a blank body. The blank bodies in question being the inhabitants of a planet that humans need to mine for energy or something.
It's fairly generic stuff. It doesn't help that the script is utter garbage filled with cliche lines like "You ain't in Kansas anymore" and "I didn't sign up for this shit", a lot of these lines had me rolling my eyes. There's nothing really original or smart about the story, it's all about the spectacle.
The villain is also so laughably generic, a hardened war colonel with no soul or sense of fun. It's a shame too, as Stephen Lang is a very capable actor worthy of much more than this. At least the other villain played by that guy from Ted and My Name is Earl had fun with his role, but the main villain was just brutal.
There is also a strong supporting cast that help things along too. Michelle Rodriguez does her usual tough girl thing from the Fast and Furious films, while Sigourney Weaver comes off much better than a lot of the other actors here.
It's fine to make a film that's all about spectacle, but it's no excuse for such boring storytelling. And such a bland lead, seriously, what the hell is Sam Worthington? He's so uncharismatic and just dull, I never cared for his character once in the barbarically overlong 3 hour run-time. Yeah, this is 3 hours, which you already know, but it hurt me and was a struggle to sit through.
On a technical level, Avatar is insanely impressive. James Cameron has made a world that feels alive, there are some great ideas and designs. Despite the whole thing being CGI, it feels real and life-like and the scale of the action is pretty awesome at times.
I suppose I could have stomached this better as a tech demo for Cameron's creative vision had it been at least an hour shorter, but with the run-time it had, it was just tedious. It doesn't help with the variety of special/extended editions that don't bring a lot to the table.
Avatar is a visual feast for the eyes, but beyond that it's a pretty hollow and outrageously overlong film with bland characters, a generic story and a script that is at times laughable.
Cameron has just announced he's working on 4 more films in the Avatar franchise and to be honest, I am pretty interested to see where he goes with it. I like the world he's set up, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
5/10 Dans
Avatar is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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