Avatar Movie
Movie Reviews this week looks at the sci-fi block buster from James Cameron (Terminator 2, Aliens) Avatar.
It is a wonderful romantic movie, and you can see very quickly why it was much lauded at the Oscars and in the media.
For starters it has state of the art 3D, I believe it was the first movie that used the patent 3D imaging to capture the facial expressions of the actors so not only do we see a realistic portrayal of the Avatar the actors represented, but their facial expressions were shown on their avatars in a very realistic way, and the CGI programming is top notch, you will feel as if you are in a another world.
The story begins with Jake Sully played extemely well by Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation), a marine who has been left in a wheel chair, but the death of his twin, means he now has the opportunity to replace his brother on a mission to Pandora, a distance planet a mining corporation called “The Company” has ear marked for future drilling in the hope of gaining Unobtanium (apparently it costs a million a kilogram, hence it is a very lucrative venture).
Jake uses his brothers Avatar (which as he describes it are remotely controlled bodies made up of human DNA and the DNA of the natives called the Navi). Despite the protests of the team leader Grace played by the stalwart Sigourney Weaver (Aliens) to her boss Parker Selfridge played very convincingly by Giovanni Ribisi (completely different from the vulnerable medic he played in Saving Private Ryan), Jake is allowed to join their excursion.
However his first day using the Avatar is extremely eventful, not only is he chased to within an inch of his life by an angry creature, he happens to meet the daughter of the lesder of one of the clans of the Navi, Neytiri played adoringly by Zoe Saldana (Star Trek), her strength and vulnerability simply makes the movie.
He is brought to the head of the clan, and once Neytiri tells him that he is her father and he is deciding whether to kill him or not, the fast thinking Jake tells them he is a warrior of the Jarhead clan, the leader Eytukan played by the dependable Wes Studi (Last of the Mohicans) and his wife Mo’at played by Carol Christine Hillary Pounder (The Shield) are suitably interested and allow Neytiri despite her protestations to teach Jake their ways.
Jake’s new found acceptance by the Navi is seen by an opportunity by the protagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch played superbly by Stephen Lang (Gods and Generals) who Selfridge has as a last ditch attempt to force the Navi to move, as their home (a gigantic tree) sits on the largest unobtanium deposits within a 30 mile radius of any place.
However the longer Jake learns about the Navi, the less he is convinced of the virtue of his task, as he is beginning to falling love with the Navi and Neytiri.
The movie portrays the natives living at one with nature and the contrast of the sky people (humans) who have nothing to teach them but simply wants to destroy their home for their own financial benefits, a parallel to the Amazons, or many other ancient civilisations other people have destroyed in a quest for profit. The movie is extremely well done, with some fantastic action sequences, and superb animtronics and CGI, and it goes without saying you end up rooting for the Navi all through.
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