12) Movie Review AVATAR

The Players:

• Director/Writer: James Cameron
• Executive Producer: Colin Wilson
• Actors: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel Moore
• Cinematographers: Mauro Fiore and Vince Pace
• Music By: James Horner

The Plot:

Paraplegic war veteran, Jake Sully is brought to another planet called Pandora in place of his brother with the promise of getting his legs back if he helps the government on a mission. Pandora is inhabited by a primitive race called the Na’vi and Jake is sent in to learn their ways so that he can help relocate them and the humans can take over.

The Good:

• Special Effects: As if you didn’t already expect this. The SFX are impeccable and he uses them well. Instead of just shoving them in your face, he weaves them into the story beautifully, and they come off effortlessly.
• The Details: Normally in a film like this, you can see a few mistakes here and there, but I didn’t catch any. From Sam Worthington’s tiny legs to the computers within the scenes – every detail was thought out and used as a part of the environment. The best thing that Cameron did was allow for all his hard work to be incorporated into the wide shots without saying “hey look at this.” In allowing everything to be part of a greater whole, Cameron truly created a world of his own, which makes you truly feel as if you’ve been transported into a new world while watching the film.
• The Acting: To both the actors and director’s credit, the performances came through extremely well. It’s amazing how much of the actors emotions you could see through their Avatar characters. Zoe Saldana gave an especially emotional and strong performance, and you never even saw her real face.
• Sam Worthington’s Hair: It sounds ridiculous, but this is another detail that really stood out. Normally you’ll notice that an actor is given a hairstyle that they can have throughout the entire film, but Worthington’s hair changed with every time shift in the movie and it always looked completely natural. Yet again, nice touch.