The Hindu : Karnataka News : A visual masterpiece Film review

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Sunday, Dec 20, 2009
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A visual masterpiece Film review

HIGH-TECH SPECTACLE: The 3D gives an added dimension to the movie-watching experience.

Avatar (English)

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez

Director: James Cameron

The germ of the idea for Terminator (1984) came to James Cameron while shooting in Europe. He had a vision of a cyborg with metal skeleton stepping out of the flames. As he did not have the budget to set the movie in the future, he brought his futuristic vision to the present.

Cameron has come a long way from those impoverished days.

He spent Rs. 1,200 crore on his latest venture, Avatar. The movie is a visual masterpiece and the mind boggles at the number of creative envelopes pushed. Avatar works on the technical and content front. It is a love story, a hero movie chock-a-block with Braveheart moments; it is an underdog story, filled with all manner of weird and wonderful flora and fauna.

To top it all, it also makes strong statements about environment degradation, healing the world, the wicked meanness of evil corporates, the cruelty of the military, and xenophobia.

We Indians can be pleased as punch over all the India references — starting from the avatar concept to the blue-skinned race of nature worshippers. The 3D gives an added dimension (pun intended) to the movie-watching experience.

The cast get into the skin suits and gamely perform before the blue (or is it green?) screen.

Sigourney Weaver (welcome back Sgt. Ripley) is Dr. Grace, a tough scientist in charge of the Avatar programme by which the earthlings want to infiltrate the Na’Vi, indigenous people of the moon, Pandora.

The plan is to get rid of the Na’Vi and mine Pandora for a rare mineral called unobtainium — don’t know if it is sly wordplay or whether I heard right.

Sam Worthington is the wounded marine who signs up for the Avatar programme. He turns rogue once he becomes a believer in the Na’vi way of life. The comely Na’Vi princess, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) might have had something to do with it.

There is Michelle Rodriguez as Trudi, the gung-ho pilot, and Stephen Lang as the cartoonish warmongering Colonel Miles Quaritch.

Don’t go to the movie expecting an iconic “I’ll be back” moment. Go for the spectacle and some heavy-duty shock and awe and satisfaction is guaranteed.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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