ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

JAMES CAMERON never does anything by halves. Twelve years ago when he released Titanic, everyone was predicting disaster, and yet the film became the biggest money-spinner in film history.

A scene from James Cameron's Avatar (© Official Avatar Movie, 2009)

Cameron has been off the radar for a good part of the past dozen years, but returns to reclaim his crown as the kind of blockbuster entertainment with Avatar, a futuristic spectacle rumoured to be the most expensive film ever made. He’s never going to make a drawing room comedy with a small ensemble cast.

The thing that impresses most about Avatar is the sheer scale and ambition of Cameron’s vision. He uses the most sophisticated 3-D technology to transport us to an imaginary world and make it feel as real as the road you walk down every day.

In the 22nd century, earth is facing ecological disaster and the one means of escape could be to harness the mineral resources of the distant planet of Pandora. This alien paradise is so beautifully created that you can almost feel the brush of a passing fern and hear the thump of a rare creature heading in your direction.

Sam Worthington stars as Jake Scully, a paraplegic marine confined to a wheelchair. He volunteers to become an Avatar, which means that his DNA is fused with that of one of the Na’vi tribe who inhabit Pandora. Once on the planet his avatar falls in love with Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who awakens his conscience to the terrible wrongs being committed by his fellow human invaders.

The plot of Avatar has echoes of Dances With Wolves, and cannot help but invoke the exploitation of the Americas by the early white settlers, the war in Vietnam, the war in Iraq, or any of the countless adventures of well-intentioned [and not so well-intentioned – Ed.] imperialist forces.

It builds towards a twenty-minute battle sequences that is a stunning illustration of the power of modern moviemaking. Avatar may not have the most sophisticated plot, but it is a pioneering cinematic spectacle on a par with the arrival of Star Wars or the moment we all believed that a man could fly. Movies will probably never be the same again.

Nationwide release

Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi
Screenwriter: James Cameron
Certificate: 12A
Running time:163 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2009

© Allan Hunter, 2009

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