Cameron Crows

Much like Titanic,Avatar has been made with a budget that could well support a small nation’s economy for a year (rumours have it that the budget crossed the $ 500 million mark for this one). However,disregarding the ethics of such expenditure on a film,this unprecedented extravagance guilt trips you into embracing the spectacle of Cameron’s vision— a lush alertnate universe,swathed in colours. Pandora,the verdant planet where the film is set,glitters,throbs and shines you into submission. But cracks develop pretty soon,and you wake up to what you had probably missed in Titanic. That the main problem with Cameron’s enterprise concerns characterisation and structure. A framing device in which human beings invade a luxuriant planet in search of alternate source of energy (did I mention that it is set in the year 2154),followed by an unlikely romance romance between Jake Sully (Sam Worthington),a paraplegic marine who travels to Pandora via an avatar image and an alien princess of the Na’vi tribe (Zoe Saldana),who teaches him the rules of her strange planet. A romance that entails not only a needlessly protracted build-up to the man versus alien collision,but primitive plotting and performances.

Moreover,the skimpy,soggy love story between two CGI-generated blue creatures leads to a conclusion that’s perversely uplifting: if your love’s strong,you are allwoed to betray even your own species,like Jake does when he gangs up with the Na’vians (Pfft!). That said,the effects mostly ensure pretty gripping spectacle.

Unfortunately,Avatar is awash in truncated subplots. Clearly,the otherwise unjustified and microscopic presence of Sigourney Weaver as a short-tempered scientist,is a nod to Cameron’s Aliens,where Weaver played a gritty scientist battling extra terrestrials. Indeed,the movie seems to have everything,including movie critics doing cartwheels. It even has what could pass as thematic depth,or,at least,a couple of themes. These would be the thrill and threat posed by technology,exacerbated by human delusions of grandeur and power.

Here,the man who wants to take over Pandora,played ably by Giovanni Ribisi,comes to terms with the disaster he has wrought. In a brief scene where he surveys the destruction he has caused,Ribisi recognizes that the gravity of his actions,but is too committed to the cause to back away.

This small moment might be the film’s finest: it’s succinct and relatively understated. Ribisi’s character might very well be an embodiment of the human nature to look away. Where most everything else in the movie is bizarre and outsized,this brief,absurd instant might be the point.

The 3 D version of Avatar is running at Fame (South City) and INOX (Forum)