Back in 2009, James Cameron's
Avatar was nearly impossible to avoid. Whether you were like me and you tried to see every movie you could that year, or rarely went to the movies at all, you knew that
Avatar was a big deal. Despite not being completely won over by the trailer, I was quickly caught in the hype machine surrounding it. I mean, when people describe seeing it in 3-D and all but comparing it to seeing the face of God, how else are you supposed to react? Even after seeing it, I was still hyped about how cool it looked and even got it on Blu Ray when it came out. (Which is depressingly becoming an old fashioned statement).
Looking back, though, it's crazy to think that it was that big of a deal. What was it that drew so many people to the movies to check it out? Was it just for the special effects? Was it the fictional world of Pandora? Was it the smack you over the head environmental message? Avatar garnered a worldwide gross of nearly 3 BILLION DOLLARS and became the highest grossing movie of all time. It took an entire decade before another movie (Avengers: Endgame) could knock it out of its top spot, only to regain its #1 title thanks to a re-release in China soon after.
The reason I bring the box office numbers and the brief but bombastic phenomenon up, is that for all its success, Avatar has all but been forgotten by pop culture. While Cameron's other films like Terminator 2 or Aliens are always being re-watched or introduced to a new generation, even Titanic still has its fans and is brought up occasionally, Avatar is never mentioned or shown. Even in the age where people create memes out of literally anything, Avatar is never referenced. The biggest (at least by box office numbers) movie of all time has all but been pushed to the side. Hell, the only time people even think about it is when James Cameron pops up every few years to threaten us, yet again, with the sequels he's been working on. That's right, not sequel, sequel(s), as in he's been working on 4 more of these movies. The last one is supposed to come out in 2028! Who are these movies for, James?? This man has dedicated the last decade of his life to a series that no one is talking about, let alone asked for.
But upon finding out that Avatar 2 is supposedly being released next year, I thought I'd check it out again and see if I could reclaim some of the hype I used to have for it.
Just to give a refresher for everyone who saw it the one time in theaters and have forgotten the storyline: Jake Sully, a space marine, arrives on the the planet of Pandora to take his brother's place and inherit his avatar, a human/alien hybrid made to withstand the harshness of this new world. Using the avatar, Jake can travel the world of Pandora, where he falls for one of the planet's natives and must then help protect them from invaders.
Since the special effects were the main selling point of the movie, I'll start with that. As far as 12 year old movie goes, and as much as cgi has improved over the last decade, the effects have held up (fairly) well. The most impressive thing with the effects is the sense of scale the filmmakers used. The humans are so much smaller than everything on Pandora, making for some impressive shots when they're near the gigantic natives of the planets, their avatars, or the heavy machinery they're using to get around. But sometimes during the film, the cgi is pretty hit or miss. That especially applies to the facial animations for these characters. There's no way to describe it other than a very unsettling cartoon effect that happens when they're talking to one another. most of the time it looks fine, other times it almost made me gasp at how bad it looked now. Other things that stood out were when people were in the mech suits all around the human settlement. It looks like their heads and torsos are floating in mid air as they sit in the middle of this imaginary robot. The hit or miss also applies to the animals on the planet. Some looked really good, especially when the right lighting was on them...others just looked unfinished. Fortunately, the environments still hold up and so do the battle scenes. Judging by today's standards, the planet of Pandora is still a very interesting and pretty world, (especially at night) even when its getting pelted with explosives.
But a movie is nothing without an interesting story and characters we care about, so how well do the plights of the Na'Vi and the main characters like Jake Sully hold up? Well....they're ok. Even at the time, the movie was being attacked by critics and audience members for basically ripping off Dances With Wolves and other stories like it. "The Outsider becomes one with the group being oppressed and only he can bring peace to the fighting and bridge the gap between worlds." We've seen a million movies with this plot and it works just as well as the others. There's nothing that really stands out as far as the story goes, it's very straight forward, offering little to no surprises along the way. The guys you suspected to be bad turn out to be bad, the people you thought would die before the end die as heroes, and the reluctant hero saves the day. The story is a fun idea, but since so much of the time is spent trying to invest you in this world, there wasn't much work put into getting to know or care about the characters, leaving you with a "meh" feeling when something good or bad happens to them.
Even when it comes to the cast, there wasn't much to be done. The characters are so simply written that even one of the greats like Sigourney Weaver couldn't do much with her role. Sam Worthington as the lead is also serviceable but nothing special. The only two that really stuck out to me were Zoe Saldana and Stephen Lang. Lang plays the big bad in the film as the leader of the invading army, and even though there's not much on the page for him, it's fun to watch him fully embrace his over the top commander role. Saldana gives the only truly good performance in the movie. She's a very expressive actress, so she's able to bring a lot of emotion to her motion capture performance, creating a real, believable character behind all the effects.
While watching the movie, I had the thought of "Who would this movie be for today?" You'd think by the language, long run time, environmental message, and the awkward love scene, that it mainly had adults in mind. But the story is so, sooooo simple and easy to digest that you'd think it was made for kids or early teens. Even if it was made for them, with the run time being nearly 3 hours and the only action scenes happening near the very end, I can't see them enjoying it either. Especially with all the other options that younger audiences have, I can't see them pushing everything aside for this. Even a movie nerd like me was bored for most of the run and cringing at the corny dialogue. In the end, that puts Avatar and its supposed sequels in a weird spot. The only people that would enjoy it now are the select few who have loved this since its release, or people who have a tiny bit of nostalgia remembering how big of a deal it was in 2009.
So to answer the question "Does Avatar Hold Up?" No, not for me. I remember being wowed by it when it was in theaters but it unfortunately didn't have enough to hold my attention while re-watching it. With all movies, if the characters and the story don't hold up, most likely the movie won't either, no matter how flashy the effects are. I'm interested to see how Cameron's sequels do, although I suspect that they won't be nearly as well received as the original was.
Sources: IMdB
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