Re: AVATAR - The Official Review Thread
I give it an A for visuals and D for story/writing. It was original and fresh when it was called "Little Big Man"--which may have been the first major Hollywood film to invert the bad injun, good cavalry theme. Since then, in movies including "Dances With Wolves," "Cabeza de Vaca," "Last...Mohicans," "The New World," the story has been done--much better, with genuinely interesting characters in the service of similar plots. You can make a big Hollywood movie with a theme like Avatar, but with real emotional resonance and without dumbing it down as badly as this was: I think Arthur Penn and Kevin Costner proved that.
I'm not saying this was a bad movie--I enjoyed the visuals as much as anyone--but after an hour or so, I was hungry for even a small touch of subtlety and well-written character conflict, but all I got was: been there, done that. It was not a ninja movie or a mere adventure movie--it had something on its mind. But the obvious plot and one-dimensional characters didn't provoke much thinking--except that plot and characters were disappointingly hackneyed. Some relevant quotes from the "Aint It Cool News" review, which MacG linked earlier in the thread:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43429
I give it an A for visuals and D for story/writing. It was original and fresh when it was called "Little Big Man"--which may have been the first major Hollywood film to invert the bad injun, good cavalry theme. Since then, in movies including "Dances With Wolves," "Cabeza de Vaca," "Last...Mohicans," "The New World," the story has been done--much better, with genuinely interesting characters in the service of similar plots. You can make a big Hollywood movie with a theme like Avatar, but with real emotional resonance and without dumbing it down as badly as this was: I think Arthur Penn and Kevin Costner proved that.
I'm not saying this was a bad movie--I enjoyed the visuals as much as anyone--but after an hour or so, I was hungry for even a small touch of subtlety and well-written character conflict, but all I got was: been there, done that. It was not a ninja movie or a mere adventure movie--it had something on its mind. But the obvious plot and one-dimensional characters didn't provoke much thinking--except that plot and characters were disappointingly hackneyed. Some relevant quotes from the "Aint It Cool News" review, which MacG linked earlier in the thread:
So much hard work to create so much cinematic loveliness for such a binary, derivative, unsurprising narrative sledgehammer....
...the movie gets increasingly simple-minded, bordering on didactic. The humans get EEEEEEEVIL. The savages get Noble....
But spectacle isn't story.....
a hero's-quest / change-of-heart adventure in which NOTHING is surprising....
"Message overwhelms the narrative" sums up my issue nicely....
The story slips out of your head like it was sprayed with Pam.
...the movie gets increasingly simple-minded, bordering on didactic. The humans get EEEEEEEVIL. The savages get Noble....
But spectacle isn't story.....
a hero's-quest / change-of-heart adventure in which NOTHING is surprising....
"Message overwhelms the narrative" sums up my issue nicely....
The story slips out of your head like it was sprayed with Pam.
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