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Title: Avatar
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Parents will want to take note that this can be VERY scary and has many violent images. There is also a fair amount of language and sexual contect and nudity. Recommended for ages 14 and up. |
Though it’s taken twelve years to get made, James Cameron’s “Avatar” is without question the best film of the year and the best film in many years. Though there are great directors working in the business, few of them have the vision, scope, and daring to make a movie like “Avatar.” Watching the movie I wondered if this was what it felt like to discover “Star Wars” in the theater for the first time. The movie revolves around Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an ex-Marine who lost the use of his legs in combat. He enters a special program that his twin brother was working on before he died. That program is the Avatar program. The purpose of the program is to create these things called Avatars. They are scientifically created bodies of the local species on the planet Pandora.
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The natives on the planet are called Na’vi, and they turn out to be a bunch of blue tree huggers who simply want to live in peace with the planet god. Though Jake is supposed to be working with Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) in helping convince the Na’vi to move, he is secretly taking orders from Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who seems to have nothing better on his mind then to blow the Na’vi off the face of the planet. This is all well and good until Jake (now in Avatar form) is taken under the wing of Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), the princess of the tribal leader. It’s her job to teach Jake their tribes ways so that he may eventually become a member of their tribe.
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In many ways this is what “Dances With Wolves” would have been if it were made into a science fiction movie. Like that movie this movie is filled with marvelous landscapes and worlds. I was very impressed with what Cameron has managed to create. Most of the time directors will alter landscapes to create something that looks new, but Pandora IS a new world! One that is colorful, beautiful, and peaceful. Rarely are as frustrated with environment killers as you are in this movie. The movie is also a great love story. The lost between Jake and Neytiri is so human and tender that it has to be seen to be believed. When Neytiri discovers Jake as a human for the first time, the simple touch of her hand to his face is so tender and beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
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If the movie falls I suppose it should be noted that the antagonist is far from interesting. Being nothing more then a gun-touting general, I found nothing terribly offensive about the character, but for a movie with such originality and creativeness it’s a shame the bad guy has to be there simply to be bad. That said, since he is pure evil that makes the climax all the more exciting, so maybe I’m overanalyzing this to an extent. Ah, but a somewhat less-than-spectacular villain doesn’t cripple this film or even really hurt it. The bottom line is that James Cameron has created a wonderful thing here. A “Star Wars” for the new millennium. A thing of beauty. An instant classic.
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A movie that can be watched by anyone and everyone, and it will have something in it for them. Throughout the movie all I could see was twelve years of love and labor going into something that was going to be loved for generations. The fact that there is a toy line out there should not delusion you into thinking this is another action film designed to sell toys. While it may very well sell toys, this is an original experience. One that we rarely get these days, and one that we really should get more often. If it takes Cameron another twelve years to make a movie I remain unconcerned. Because at this point I think he’s proven himself a master of film making, and besides, as the old saying goes there’s no rushing great art. “Avatar” is living proof of that statement.
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Spaceriffic Review
