I've seen a film: Avatar

I woke up this morning with a feeling that I *had* to write a film review of Avatar, and so I did, even though I find it kind of strange that I had a feeling it was necessary.

When I first saw this picture of some blue elfin alien tribal girl in the newspaper I thought it was the most beautiful picture ever, and I was so excited that there would be an entire film just like that picture. As soon as I realized that Avatar was a Big Thing, I pretty soon grew tired of hearing about it. What? More than three people have heard about it? Fuck it, it's not underground enough for pretentious little me.. I don't want to be pretentious though, so I gave it a chance. Kind of.

When I went to see Avatar, I knew I'd love the visuals but suspected that the story would be full of things I'd complain about. And I was right.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVED the film and I even liked parts of the storyline, but I always have stuff to complain about, so here we go:

photographic silkscreen/vinyl by Barbara Kruger

Avatar is full of bad clichés.
Of course it takes an American white male to save the day, and of course he gets to sleep with the prettiest N'avi. And she's really pretty. I mean, it wouldn't have been the same if she looked like Walt Disney's Goofy or something. She's also tribal, kind of like a native, and in addition, animal-like. A blue version of The Other.

What seemed to me like the second half of the film was a really boring war sequence, with people running and chasing and doing battle stuff. My younger brother says this is the best part of the film. I think the best part of the film is where they just walk about and look at the pretty scenery, and explore the amazing ways the planet works.


In fact, I think Avatar would have been so much better if they skipped the storyline altogether and had more of the "ooh, look at that beautiful tree, it has glowing lights on it, and it's like a collective consciousness central thingy", "woha we can connect our neurons with animals!", "ooh and look at that pretty flower and that floating bit of land in the air, how weird and amazing, the world is a great place, and it's all connected, so lets take better care of it!".


It's a shame that I feel that the storyline doesn't live up to the visuals, as it's sort of annoying with something that is so close to being perfect, yet is not entirely perfect. It feels wrong to complain though, as Avatar is such a fantastic experience of lush beautiful imagery, and I'm glad I've filled my brain up with pretty pictures of imaginary alien botany from Pandora.