Directed by:
James CameronScreenplay:
James CameronCinematography:
Mauro FioreComposer:
James HornerCast:
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso, Sigourney Weaver (more)VOD (6)
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Set in the year 2154, Cameron's sci-fi epic chronicles the U.S. military effort to mine an extremely valuable mineral from a tiny distant world called Pandora whose natives are a race of blue creatures known as the Na'vi. Sam Worthington stars as wheelchair-bound former Marine Jake Sully who becomes an Avatar to Pandora. Taken in by a feisty female Na'vi (Zoe Saldana) and taught the customs of this new world, Jake soon falls in love with both - and finds himself at the center of a battle for control of Pandora. (Home Box Office)
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The story is very pedestrian, but who cares. Thanks to James Cameron, I was again that little boy who during the deep totalitarian era, with my mouth wide open, devoured a Polish channel on a grainy black-and-white television, including the first Star Wars, or Zeman's A Journey into the Primeval Times. I devoured Avatar similarly, experiencing partly the joy of exploring the fictional world of Pandora and partly the fascination with 3D technology, which I was a virgin to this day. I really couldn't get enough of that three-dimensional image!! I have some reservations, of course. Cameron put a lot of effort io clothing his film in a 3D garb, but much less on the originality of the emotions of the characters or giving them a compelling ambiguity. All the characters are so naively one-dimensional, just like in fairy tales, but I found it endearing in a way. I hereby forbid the use of the world “cliché”, because the great James doesn’t deserve it. He doesn't deserve it because he invited me to his house for two and a half hours and shared all his hi-tech toys with me. Thanks Jim.
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Incredibly flawless and the most amazing cinema experience of my life. A film that erases the boundaries between the screen and the viewer and that lets you look into another world, to the point that it makes you want to believe Pandora is real. I expected a lot from Avatar and I had come to terms with the fact that such massive expectations could never be met, but the result actually surpassed them. This is something that I could have never imagined, even in my wildest fantasies, because up until now nobody had set a standard for the cinema screen according to which we could set our expectations. The story perhaps isn’t great, but it’s beautiful, classic in the best sense of the word, and certainly not worse than other blockbusters. And to be honest, I don’t think I would be able to watch something intricate, like Strange Days for instance, in this package. Once there are more comparable films, Avatar probably won’t be my favourite (due to personal genre preferences), but it will always be the first. Another viewing is mandatory, the cinema is mandatory, 3D is mandatory! Cameron was the king of the world, now he’s the emperor of the galaxy, next time he’ll reach at least god level, and after this experience, I’m almost certain he’ll pull it off. PS: The posers with prejudices like “I can’t be arsed with a fairytale about blue monkeys” will surely find plenty of things to criticise and I wish them the best wholeheartedly, they are only depriving themselves of the experience. PS2: The experience from the second viewing is at least the same. During the last 60 minutes those goosebumps hardly disappeared.
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Avatar is, in a way, like a visit to an amusement park full of tempting experiences that fully engage all the senses. It is a magnificent blockbuster, full of breathtaking action and ostentatiously elaborate visuals. It is a film on the very edge of today's technological possibilities and it shows. Undeniably, it will become the film event of the year and will be included in film history alongside other pop culture legends. It can be talked about in many ways. Firstly, it is an attempt to stop the decline of the traditional film industry, replaced by cheap video production and the internet, and to bring audiences back to movie theaters. Even for the most hardened pirates, who consider data theft a matter of personal honor and get a fit of indignation at the thought of paying for a ticket, downloading Avatar will be a waste of time similar to a desperate attempt to deflower a virgin protected by an iron belt of modesty. Avatar is a spectacle that requires the highest possible quality medium, preferably a large 3D screen with the best sound. Cameron managed to use the 3D format not for cheap effects, but to deepen the image and create true plasticity of the world depicted. In understanding its possibilities and in terms of experience with this format, he is the furthest ahead of everyone and clearly set the direction in which high-budget studio mainstream production will go in the following years. As for the rest, there is no revolution happening. The story is simple, and I am not the first person to notice its similarity to Pocahontas. I don't care that the story is not original; many famous directors in the past made a name for themselves by plundering the titles of their less successful colleagues, and many film fans would be shocked to learn that their favorite films have prototypes in completely unknown films from the past. What's worse for me is that Avatar can be considered a perfectly conventional film, which precisely caters to all audience expectations and naively distorted ideas about a noble, untouched "wild" civilization living in touching harmony with nature. It is a combination of the perspective of an urban environmentalist crossed with Karl May. Cameron does not burden his viewers' brains with anything, and that is understandable. Allegedly, his project cost (not to mention distribution expenses) around four hundred million dollars, and nothing must spoil the expectations of the producers. To criticize Avatar for its calculatedness and lack of creative courage is the same as being indignant that water is wet and fire burns. Both are true and there is nothing you can do about it. I have a problem with exactly what will fascinate many people - the beautifully colored visuals full of sharp contrasts that bring Avatar close to the commercial productions of Walt Disney. It is appealing, fairytale-like, and overly fantastic, exactly what you dreamed of as children. But that is precisely what old Walt always irritated me with. In Cameron's directing style, the characters are flat and fully subordinate to a simple plot line. Overall impression: 55%.
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A great fairy tale adventure for those of us who have been waiting all these months and years for it to come, and a grand spectacle that becomes so huge in the end that human senses cannot absorb everything and a regular director can't control it. And it is right here where it shows that giving so much time to a movie sometimes really pays off, to the last minute and dollar. Although the compassionate ethnic/ecological message did not hit the mark in my case, everything else is part of an opus that has never been seen before. An awe-struck 90% for a movie whose sequel will have no rival on a global scale.
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Real... but incredible too. Cameron delivered all I was expecting and much more. He embellished this simple or fairytale story (a dash of Pocahontas, a dash of Beauty and the Beast etc.) with an incredible amount of ideas and details that take your breath away. Of course, I made sure to watch Avatar at the IMAX and I must say that the movie really was created for 3D with a screen as large as possible. Pandora plucks you like a raspberry (parallel with Jake) and you feel the new world in all its beauty and unknown secrets and you want more and you get more. Each animal is more fascinating than the one you met before and every shot reveals new image after new image that remains ingrained in your memory. Luckily Jim didn’t skimp on technique and so we get the best performance from everybody. Militant and reckless humanity (represented by the great Ribisi) for destruction lovers and on the other end of the scale the naturally sweetened Na’vi race for beauty lovers (all the talk about ecological agitation are wrong, nothing specifically stands out, it all creates a whole where questions of racism etc. are also dealt with). All of this forms into a wonderfully working story and a breathtaking experience. I can’t remember seeing anything as intense (and anything that acts on all levels) for a really long time. I just noticed that I didn’t write about the special effects at all. Maybe because they didn’t seem like effects. They seemed real. When Neytiri cried, I felt with her like with a real person, not like with a nine-foot clown. She looks that real. So it should be said here that the effects are of the highest possible quality (if they are revolutionary or not, you’ll have to ask an expert in the field), personally I was completely gobsmacked, and I’ve seen a lot of movies. Almost all the actors shined, but Sam Worthington really was the best of them all. The nice guy who guides us on this wonderful journey without a doubt deserves great praise. As does Stephen Lang. A proper baddy who reels out one tough line after another. All in all, it was worth the wait. I felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open. I see you...
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