My mind was as close to being made up about Avatar as possible before even heading into the theater. I only wanted to see it for cultural relevance, so I could be part of the conversation. It was going to be cheesy, it was going to draw too heavily on graphical demonstrations, the story was going to be bad, it was going to be too long, I was not going to like Avatar. For most of Act One, my expectations were being met. One thing struck me as particularly strange (Looking back at this point) and this was just how often parts of Avatar reminded me of other movies. For Act One, the memories of Dances With Wolves was at the front of my mind. Tell me which movie I am summarizing: Injured soldier finds strange new people, at first is pushed away but then is overwhelmingly embraced. Yeah, I'm not sure either. As Sam Worthington went through the same "meet the natives" montage as viewers have seen in countless other movies, I almost fell asleep. I am not just saying this for effect. I almost actually fell asleep in the first hour. Thankfully, the action picked up come Act Two.
We break away from Dances With Wolves and jump straight into FernGully. Again, which movie am I summarizing: People living in a tree community are faced with the danger of foreigners coming and destroying their world. Sounds about right for either, huh? This is also the part of my commentary where I break down my Avatar barriers and admit to its appeal. A viewer can only watch so much of the sprawling landscape of Pandora without falling in love. After the movie, my girlfriend may have summed it up best. I leaned over hoping to get a decent reaction from her and instead I was hit by an enthusiastic, "I loved it! It was just so beautiful. I want to go there." There is no denying the artistic accomplishment of what James Cameron has put together in this movie. Never have real world elements and graphical representations been tied so seamlessly together. This is Avatar's pièce de résistance. Throw away the story, it's old hat. Throw away the dialogue, it induces rolled eyes at times. Throw away the social message, there is no need. If we are to make a time capsule of movie making from this era in Hollywood, there is no question that Avatar is going on top. Maybe even two copies just in case one gets damaged. Avatar is the horizon which most won't be able to emulate for years. For this feature alone, Avatar is a success.
In the end, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the movie. My initial critiques which where in my head prior to watching held true for the most part (One more movie parallel: How could you not think about The Matrix as the "plug" was being pulled on the avatars?). What was surprising is that I still enjoyed it thoroughly. It is a fantastic science fiction movie which hits on everything an audience would want. Where Avatar fails is in what the rest of the world has made it. Avatar is not the best movie of the year, no way. Avatar is the best looking movie of the year. Avatar is (probably) the best blockbuster movie of the year (I think Star Trek was almost equally as good). When it comes down to a battle between Avatar and The Hurt Locker in terms of comparing movies, it is not even close.
Think back to the real Olympics (Remember those in Beijing? Sorry Vancouver). Think about the diving events. Now I could (hypothetically) perform a dive from the same height as the Olympians. The dive would be either a pencil, jack knife or cannonball, but it would be a dive nonetheless. Sadly for me, even if I perform the absolute best dive in my repertoire I have a zero percent chance to come anywhere close to the best divers in the world. You see diving judges use a very practical guide based on degree of difficulty to determine a score for each dive. My jack knife might have a .01 while the Olympians are tracking in over 4. By simply attempting the difficult dive they will outscore me.
This is how I see the battle between Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Avatar performed at a mid-level degree of difficulty. It was a movie that has been done time and time again. Did it nail the execution? For the most part, yes. There were small issues, but it would rate highly with the judges. But the dive they chose didn't even allow them to compete with a movie like The Hurt Locker. This is like comparing my jack knife dive to an inverted back handspring double twist flip (Sounds real right?). Not only did The Hurt Locker hit perfectly on its dive, but it was a much more difficult attempt.
On one hand we have a fantasy world with retreaded story lines that lasts too long and is filled with terrible dialogue. Entertaining as hell, but flawed. On the other hand we have a war depiction featuring more drama and tension than any film I can remember. It was not nearly as entertaining, but it did what it was attempting to do much better than any other movie this past year. And isn't this the only way to compare works of this form? It is impossible to say which movie is best, there are always going to those who say the latest Twilight or Harry Potter movie is the best. The only fair way to judge movies is to look at the degree of difficulty and the overall execution. By this method, and apparently by whatever method the Academy uses, The Hurt Locker was the best movie of the past year.
GRM
