Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 3 hours, 12 minutes
Director: James Cameron
Quick Impressions:
I wasn’t excited to see this movie. When I heard the new Avatar was finally about to come out, my first thought was, “Really?” and my second thought was, “Oh no.”
I had a vague desire to see the next Avatar, but…not yet. I would have been content to wait another ten to fifteen years. On the other hand, the app for our usual theater would not let me view any scheduled showings of this movie on the best screen past Wednesday. With a gasp, I realized, “It’s been out for almost a month! Maybe it’s leaving theaters!” So then we had to buy tickets right away!
If I’m seeing it, I’m seeing it as it’s meant to be experienced.
My expectations weren’t high, though. In fact, I was distinctly worried because our oldest saw it, then decided, “As part of the franchise, it’s okay, but as a standalone film, it’s not really worth it.”
Hearing that freaked me out. My husband tried to reassure me, “He’s about to turn twenty. His tastes have changed a lot since he was obsessed with the first Transformers.”
“Yes,” I said, “but remember when The Phantom Menace came out? Everybody was saying it didn’t live up to the franchise but as a standalone summer popcorn movie, it was pretty good.” (Maybe that wasn’t everyone. It might have been my mom, repeatedly.) Hearing the converse from our son who normally likes big-budget popcorn flicks worried me a lot. He’s usually really into movies featuring military campaigns and lots of action sequences. He loved the new Top Gun (which we also haven’t seen). His lack of love for the new Avatar concerned me greatly.
So I went to this movie at an inconvenient time because I felt like I had no choice which is not the ideal way to watch something.
The Good:
As we were driving home from the theater, my husband remarked, “The 3D was very well done. It never hurts your eyes.”
I, who had been complaining about the movie, passionately declared, “James Cameron uses 3D better than any other filmmaker!” I punched every word as if he were arguing with me. He had been defending the movie from my attacks, and then I turned around and acted like I was defending it from him!
We both liked the 3D for the same reason. My husband said, “Usually 3D tries to make things jump out at you, but this tries to add depth…”
“And pull you in,” I agreed. “It’s an immersive experience.” (I imagine Around the World in 80 Days was supposed to work like this, too, and would have been a much better film if I’d seen it in the theater in 1956).
I remember watching Cameron’s Ghosts of the Abyss in IMAX 3D and being blown away. That was back in 2003. Usually short films designed to play in IMAX were gimmicky and of poor cinematic quality. They weren’t even pretending to be real movies. (I write this like no one reading it went to movies in 2003. That’s my usual audience. The two people I typically ramble to about these things were not even alive in 2003.) I couldn’t believe how entertaining Cameron’s film was because he was clearly deeply emotionally invested in the subject and the movie. (Bill Paxton helped.) And to use the 3D to have photographs of people who died on the Titanic jump out at the audience was genuinely moving (or, anyway, it moved me).
One thing I do admire about James Cameron as a filmmaker is his dedication to showing you a movie he would want to see—even if it costs ninety billion dollars and takes seventy-five years to make. He appears to lean into his own mythos a bit. There’s something about his way of doing things I find rather hard to resist. In Ghosts of the Abyss he has these two unbelievably expensive cameras built, then destroys the first one in like ten seconds—and immediately sends in the second one (while Bill Paxton is freaking out, which has to be played up for cinematic purposes, surely).
As a rule, I hate 3D. I get easily overstimulated visually, just overwhelmed. For years, we avoided 3D showings of movies because when my daughter was younger, she wouldn’t wear the glasses. I found that convenient because I prefer 2D, anyway.
But you can’t watch a new Avatar movie in 2D. That would just be stupid. The innovative visuals are what you’re watching it for. James Cameron actually uses 3D cameras to film the movie, and then, he uses the 3D to augment the story. (I’m saying things everyone already knows, but imagine you’re an alien reading this, leaning all about James Cameron! That will make this review more tolerable for you.) What he seems to be going for is total immersion in the world. It’s easy to imagine swimming through the seas on Pandora yourself, which I’m sure we’ll all be doing at Disney World soon. (And that’s reason enough to watch the film. Flight of Passage is my seven-year-old’s favorite ride at Disney World, one of the only things he’ll actually ride. Pandora is great for photo-ops even if you skip the rides. Our whole family loves Disney parks. I’ll eschew pretense of sophistication. When the Pandora area of Animal Kingdom is augmented, we’ll be back to explore all the new stuff for sure. So I appreciate the sneak peek at what could be coming attractions.)
The visual effects in the film are so good, they’re almost bad. For a while, I remember thinking to myself, This is motion capture, right? It almost looks like animation. Everything is so crisply rendered that this almost looks like a video game. For a while, I was convinced that the character of Spider is in the film so that the audience will know for sure these are motion capture performances and not computer animation. For me, the picture was almost too clear.
“That was 4K, wasn’t it?” I said to my husband.
“Yes,” he replied. “I was thinking, ‘Sarah will hate this.’”
I really am slow to love 4K. I’m sure it will grow on me. But when we got our new TV, the 4K drove me crazy. I still have a problem with it. We have to mess around with all the settings to adjust the picture to make it tolerable to me. 4K always looks like reality instead of a movie.
I will say, though, that the illusion of reality works well in this instance since you’re supposed to feel totally immersed in the adventure on screen, like you’ve fallen into a story book.
Looking at the picture, I was unable to tell what was real and what was special effects. I mean, I know the Na’Vi aren’t real. But what about the water? Is it beautifully rendered (as I initially said), or is it just beautiful water? I know they’re actually in the water because of all those stories of Kate Winslet being under water for 36,000 years while filming this. But does the water actually look like that? Is its beauty augmented? This is some breathtakingly gorgeous water!
The special effects are flawless. My only complaint is that the whole thing looks too sublime to be real, like a video game. The incredible depth seems to be achieved in just about the same way in every scene, but it always works. I like being welcomed into the scene, being pulled in. I also like Simon Franglen’s score.
The story is a little…underwhelming. But it’s not bad (especially when you consider three more installments are coming). The epic visuals and length of the movie might lead us to expect a different type of story. But this one is simple (even though it takes forever to tell). Simple is not necessarily bad. In some ways, it reminds me more of a story you’d see in an animated series or a video game or a How to Train Your Dragon movie. (But the How to Train Your Dragon movies are good, and some animated series and video games have truly engaging stories, so this isn’t exactly an insult.)
For the most part, I feel like I’ve seen this story before. The story beats feel familiar. But…I don’t exactly know why. Maybe it’s the universality of the themes and scenarios that make the story seem familiar. But everyone can relate to universal themes, and the visuals aren’t just eye candy. They’re used to advance the story. There’s a lot of visual storytelling in this film. That was a problem for me sometimes, but only because long stretches without dialogue cause me to drift off into thought and ruminate on my failures as a human being (never intentionally. As a matter of fact, drifting off into thought and ruminating during long stretches without dialogue is one of my failures as a human being.)
The characters are mostly quite likeable. (Even the villain is kind of likeable, honestly. I was weirdly pleased when one of his relationships started working out. In fact, that’s the relationship I’m most interested in going forward. The antagonist in this film has piqued my curiosity.) Plus the story has a good moral for families, and it seems to be carefully setting up the next installment. Who doesn’t love Sigourney Weaver? I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of her. I’m all for that.
My husband noted, “It was very long. I was trying to think of a way to shorten it…”
“You couldn’t shorten it,” I argued. “You couldn’t possibly shorten it! The whole point is that it’s an immersive experience, so it has to be an experience that you’re drawn into gradually.” (If I wrote down only what I said in response to his comments, everyone would think, “Wow! She loved this movie!”)
I have seen far shorter films that felt interminable and poorly paced. The length of this film is not one of its weaknesses (unless you’re arguing it’s a moral failing of the director, an indicator of his hubris or something, which is just dumb. I’ve also met plenty of people with far more glaring hubris than James Cameron who don’t create anything nearly as interesting). It doesn’t feel long in a bad way. You settle into it like a dream, and after a while, you feel like you’re a part of the story, a part of the world.
Best Action Sequence:
I began to enjoy the movie when Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) meets the wounded tulkun (aka two-eyed whale). Lo’ak is by far the most engaging character in this installment of the story, though Sigourney Weaver appears positioned to become the face of the entire franchise (which seems like a sensible decision on James Cameron’s part). I kept trying to recognize the actor playing Lo’ak, but I realize now that the motion capture is not to blame for my failure to do so. I’m just unfamiliar with Dalton. His human features do come through in the motion capture, but to recognize them, you have to know what he looks like.
I like Lo’ak’s relationship with tulkun better than anything else. Now, initially I found aspects of it kind of cheesy. The telepathy is introduced in a clunky way, I think. But…it’s still the most interesting part of the movie up to that point.
Best Scene Visually:
I kept saying to myself, “This is the best scene visually.” I need to see the film again to describe any of them in detail.
One involved a gun. One involved looking up through stairs. The scene inside the whale stands out, too.
The visuals in this are excellent, start to finish. The same thing happens repeatedly. A part of the ground cover—a plant, a tree branch (which I guess is also a plant), something appears in front of the action, almost as if it wants us to move forward into the scene. We have the illusion of being between it and the action happening deeper within.
Best Action Sequence:
Until the big showdown/rescue/escape/standoff at the end of the movie, I wasn’t sure Jake Sully was going to have much to do. The end of the movie is all action, and it’s surprisingly easy to absorb (from someone who often zones out during frenetic action sequences).
Best Scene:
I like the moment when Lo’ak covers for the other chief’s son, and then his dad gets mad at him and doesn’t listen to him. Lo’ak has a lot of promise as a potential movie protagonist. He’s clearly the most interesting person in his family who isn’t Sigourney Weaver.
The Negatives:
The last Avatar came out in 2009. My mom watched our baby daughter so we could see it with our six-year-old (the one who wasn’t crazy about this sequel). He’s now in college, and she’s about to start high school. I’m under the impression that this movie is the one James Cameron has been working on all this time.
“He was probably working on improving the visual effects,” my husband pointed out.
“No,” I said, “it’s not just that because I remember a story about him talking to indigenous peoples and scrapping an entire completed screenplay.” Something like that.
Thirteen years is a long time. A long time.
The visuals are stunning, but, as I’ve said, they’re almost too good for me. Everything looks so clear and perfect that it no longer looks like a movie. It could be entirely good CGI, and it would look the same. It could be a video game. (We finally got a PS5, and my husband has been playing games lately that look stunning. They look almost the same as this movie.)
As this movie began, I thought, Sam Worthington seemed like he was going to be a huge star, but I haven’t seen him in anything for a long time. Maybe this will breathe new life into his career. Then I thought, Hmm. I’m not really seeing him much in this, either! Until the last quarter of the three-hour movie, there’s not much of a part for Jake Sully. He’s still driving the action just by existing, but he’s not in the film that much until the big finale.
I do have a question. If almost every actor is using motion capture technology to give their performance, why can I only recognize Sigourney Weaver? I mean this quite literally. Somehow, Sigourney Weaver was the only person I could recognize in the entire movie. (It was distracting, because she’d look up, and I’d think of the aquarium narration from Finding Dory. “I’m Sigourney Weaver.” I’m more than aware this is not James Cameron’s fault. It’s user error. I’m the wrong person to be critiquing his movie.)
When I mentioned this, my husband said, “I don’t think Sigourney Weaver is playing her own daughter, too.”
Hysterically, I replied, “If that is not Sigourney Weaver, then I have no idea what is true in the universe!”
It is Sigourney Weaver. You can see it’s her. (For several minutes, I sat there thinking, “Who is that young actress I’m thinking of who looks exactly like Sigourney Weaver…?” And then finally I realized, “No, Sarah. You’re thinking of Sigourney Weaver. And that is Sigourney Weaver.”) But I couldn’t recognize anyone else!
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana reprise their roles, so I knew they were Jake Sully and Neytiri. And I guessed who Kate Winslet had to be. But that’s it. Perhaps I had trouble with the other Na’vi because they weren’t actors I knew, anyway. (Well, I do know Cliff Curtis, but I kept thinking his character might be Gerard Butler.) (It’s worth noting that I also did not recognize Edie Falco and Jemaine Clement, and they were not playing Na’vi!) (I really can’t believe I didn’t recognize Falco. I gasped when I saw her name appear in the end credits. Once I saw her name, I knew who she was, but that’s a little late! She’s not given much of a part, despite her character’s status and how frequently she appears. Maybe her character gets more development in subsequent installments. If that’s not the case, there’s no reason to cast her. Apparently, if you put Edie Falco in a hat, I stare blankly. Then if you remove the hat, I gasp, “Where did Edie Falco come from?”) (And why couldn’t I recognize Jemaine Clement? I recognized him in Moana, and he was a giant crab! I even liked his character sort of, but I didn’t know it was him!)
I’m revealing this at length because I think I’m the wrong audience for this movie. Visually, it was too stunning. I couldn’t see it. My brain rejected it. (That’s the ultimate insult to an Avatar movie, when the audience whispers pointedly, “I don’t see you.”)
I’ll confess, I’m not the hugest fan of the Avatar franchise. My mother was. She loved Avatar and thought it was so much better than The Hurt Locker. (It is more fun than The Hurt Locker. I don’t particularly love The Hurt Locker either. I liked Zero Dark Thirty much better.) We bought the blu-ray when it came out, but she was the one who watched it all the time. I saw movies like this because my mother loved them and was always watching them…at my house…where she lived. My older son generally likes this kind of movie, too. But he didn’t really like this movie, and my mother is dead, so…It’s over three hours long, you know.
We were really excited to see the first Avatar in the theater because it arrived with such fanfare. My excitement level is revealed by the fact that I actually went. It was the first movie we’d gone to since my daughter came home from the NICU that spring. I was reluctant to leave her. I had trouble enjoying the movie because someone had left a used Kleenex in my cupholder, and no matter how many times I washed my hands in the movie theater bathroom, they never felt clean. I spent most of the movie worried I would bring something home to my baby and make her sick. Still, I think I liked that Avatar better than this one. Maybe that’s indefensible of me. I can’t help it.
For me, the problem is this. Films like The Banshees of Inisherin, Tár, Babylon, even The Whale are intellectually engaging, emotionally engaging. They’re stimulating. Watching them is like drinking ten cups of coffee. You may not like the questions they’re asking or what they make you feel, but they’re telling you something constantly. This movie does not have enough dialogue. It’s too easy to space out and get lost in your own thoughts. To me, it feels like nothing is happening. More is happening inside my brain than is happening in the movie. You do experience this movie as if you’re experiencing real life, but sometimes I kind of hate experiencing real life.
I’ll say this, though. The movie leaves an impression. Even now, I can close my eyes and imagine I’m on Pandora, in the water. I’m still not that engaged in the story (though there’s nothing wrong with it), but the atmosphere really sticks with you. That’s impressive. I’m not sure it’s ever happened to me before in quite this way. Since this is part 2 of 5, it’s hard to judge it until I’ve seen the next three parts. The cumulative effect may be quite powerful once the story is finished.
Overall:
The Golden Globes confused me tonight. I can’t tell if I’m out of touch with pop culture/reality, or the Golden Globes is. I’m concerned that movies are dying. (Our oldest rarely goes to the theater to see movies, and I can’t get that out of my head.) This movie is a visual feast, but it needs a stronger story. Actually what it needs is an audience excited to watch it. The visuals are truly outstanding, though. And the story is solid. It’s just not that exciting…yet.