For Reel

Director: James Cameron

It’s loud, obvious, naive, disorienting: it’s “Avatar”. The mega-blockbuster is James Cameron’s follow up to his still-reigning box office champion, “Titanic”, and twelve years later his intentions are no more humble: Cameron has quite literally set out to reinvent cinema. Making advances in motion capture and 3D technology, “Avatar” depicts what Cameron believes to be the future of movie-going. I can’t say that I have the stomach for more than a few “Avatar”’s a year, but for what it is, Cameron’s effort has some moments of pure cinematic bliss. That is, until things descend rapidly into an orgy of explosions, gunplay, and cornball dialogue.

We will call this “Funny People” syndrome – there are clearly two films in one, and one works remarkably more than the other. Cameron’s writing is certainly far from “Avatar”s” highpoint, but once characters are reduced to screaming variations of “I didn’t sign up for this” and “get some”, I was begging for gems like “we’re not in Kansas anymore” to return.

I have no problem with action, but I am irritated by excess. “Avatar” reaches what appears to be it’s climax, and then proceeds to plateau there for what feels like weeks. And not once, amidst the expertly-realized aerial combat, did I get the sense of awe that I got from the quiet moments in the jungles of Pandora.

In the film, set in 2154, Earth’s resources are depleted. Humans are looking to mine “unobtainium” from the planet Pandora, a land run by the big, blue, environmentally-friendly Na’vi.

Communication has been attempted with the natives by way of “avatars”, synthetic Na’vi’s controlled remotely by humans. A paraplegic ex-marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), becomes an unlikely candidate for the avatar program once his twin brother passes. Fulfilling the role of a genetic match for the avatar, Jake sets out to learn the way of the Na’vi and, per command of the devious Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and bureaucratic Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), convince them to relocate before the military devastates their homeland.

The 3D is well-realized, understanding the benefits of establishing a heightened depth of field rather than throwing things at our faces. Most memorable to me were the drifting, cotton-like seeds of Pandora, floating out-of-focus amongst the glowing vegetation. The extended sequences we spend exploring the jungle and bonding with the Na’vi, the brave Neytiri as our tour-guide (Zoe Saldana), are representative of the true transcendental, rich power of cinema.

“Avatar”’s first half is as exciting as anything i’ve seen on the big screen this year, but the excessive, tireless action sequences that dominate the latter half had me recalling the year’s most mind-numbing.