12 years after he won 11 Oscars for Titanic, and proclaimed himself ‘King Of The World’, everyone’s favourite high-stakes auteur James Cameron returns with a quiet, introspective drama, somewhat reminiscent of Bergman…OK, that isn’t at all true. Avatar, which represents Cameron’s grand return to cinema, has been breathlessly hyped as ‘the second coming of film’, a claim which seems absurd and misleading until you actually see the grand vision that has been put on screen. There are images here that are indelible, and unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.
The plot is more or less a means to an end to showcase these remarkable visual effects. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a crippled ex-marine who is recruited to act as an avatar – literally, to assume another body – belonging to a 12-foot humanoid being called a Na’vi, whose planet Pandora is rich in natural resources that his employers wish to exploit for their own purposes. Sully firstly takes to his new body with a kind of gleeful abandon, but soon comes to develop an affinity for the Na’vi people, in particular Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, seen earlier this year in Star Trek), a princess. Eventually, the time must come for Sully to decide which side he is on.
Some might carp at the way that Cameron’s admittedly broad brush style of writing means that subtle instances of character and plot are largely ignored. But this is grand, epic filmmaking, on a par with Titanic or Lord Of The Rings, and seems guaranteed to be one of the year’s biggest box office hits. For the full effect, see it in 3D, preferably at an IMAX screen, and let yourself be transported.
Out 17 December.
