[Editor's Note: We have published reviews of Avatar by David Chen, Brendon Connelly, and Russ Fischer. Here is a different take on the film from Hunter Stephenson.]
No man is an island, so James Cameron humbly ventured off several years into the future to create one for his own damn self called Pandora. And now he's inviting the unwashed masses to explore it for a small fee, with permission to return, preferably in the company of an unsuspecting elder skin, if one so chooses. In my mind, the phrase "movie gods" as it applies to mainstream blockbusters had nearly become obsolete. Agree? The exciting, previously unimaginable computer generated wow-factor that Cameron and Steven Spielberg defined with Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park was followed by challengers to the SFX throne that, even at their best, never quite felt as revolutionary and transportive.
Of course there were numerous bold and admirable attempts made, notably by a pre-King Kong Peter Jackson, Zach Snyder's 300, and the Wachowskis' The Matrix, a classic genre film belied slightly by cash-grab sequels. And before Avatar, I had already placed my chips on Neill Blompkamp to deliver a genre film as immersive and eventful as the second coming. Blompkamp's District 9 from this year wasn't a 3D film, but his frugal brilliance in realizing and anthropomorphizing alien insectoids was entirely convincing. Nevertheless, the tech-marvel actioner remained in a rut as blockbusters' dependence on empty SFX grew increasingly depressing.
This year alone, moviegoers were subjected to further glaze-eyed CGI genre piss with 2012, T4, Transformers 2, and yet another Robert Zemeckis motion-capture "almost." And before those, of course, George Lucas attempted to remake the end-all hat trick of spectacle islands only to end up constructing a deranged, labyrinth-like fanboy prison (allegedly part of his deal with Satan). Forever, Soul Crusher #1.
Avatar as a Cinematic Experience Without Comparison
Here we are after untold years of "game changer" hype—and it's all or nothing—with Avatar. An almost mythical project, I had the nerve a few weeks ago to compare its inevitable disappointment to Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy. The comparison was made during an interview in which Chuck Klosterman also offered, "You know, Avatar, it just doesn't look that good, but maybe it'll be great." Turns out, we had nothing to worry about. It is great. Paul Thomas Anderson couldn't make it, nor could Pixar (though Andrew Stanton's similar John Carter of Mars looms). Avatar is a global reminder, a welcome reassurance, that a master-director is still out there showing and proving in the belief that he is the mainstream blockbuster god. And perhaps he really is. Stick your tendril-tail into Cameron's $300 million fantasy epic to find out for yourself.
For the first time this year, I watched a film by a director that broke through all of our accelerating online chatter and made The Moment his alone. Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, and Tiger Woods all had The Moment this year, but the immediacy of James Cameron's Moment is collectively being experienced through art as I type this. He has transcended stagnant notions of what cinema is and created a work that everyone should watch experience. From now on Cameron's genius permits him to, I dunno, rock a computer-rendered Amadeus powdered wig. Similar to Lady Gaga's outfits (or Cameron's bizarre preference of Papyrus for the subtitle font), no one can inquire of his reasoning. It would be impolite.
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