Avatar

As of Monday exams were well and truly over (wooooooooooooooop), so last night we could finally justify spending a good three hours watching James Cameron's epic "Avatar." After getting over the initial vomit inducing feeling of watching moving 3D images on a massive hangover...it really was a bewitching experience.

Avatar is one of the most - if not the most - visually stunning films of all time. The scenes in Pandora... the forest, the trees and the creatures are irresistibly seductive. Cameron's world is like an entirely purple, futuristic Rivendell (but where the elves are blue and sparkle like vampires.) You become effortlessly immersed in the story, and begin to care about the characters without much hesitation. In fact, Avatar has all the ingredients of an absolute masterpiece. Yet somehow...it just falls short of reaching the dizzy heights of Gladiator, Lord of the Rings or Cameron's own Titanic. It is certainly an incredible epic, and a modern great, but... (not from lack of trying)... it fails to become a member of that very exclusive club.

It's becasue the film simply tries to do too much. Cameron throws in key themes from just about every iconic fantasy epic that has ever been released. We have the dual world/consciousness motif from the Matrix triology, the role of nature conquering destruction from Tolkien, and I couldn't help being constantly reminded of Disney's Pocohontas throughout the whole thing. As if the whole native versus western invader plot wasn't enough to make that connection - they even start asking a tree for advice.

The scenes between Jake and Neytiri are simply lovely, and their love affair provides a nice relief from the action and explosions. But more than anything they are a very welcomed escape from the film's rather painfully obvious anti-Iraq War propaganda. I think most of the audience was already well aware what type of modern politics Colonel Quaritch was supposed to represent - long before he actually used the words "pre-emptive strike." I am all for subtle allegory, but Cameron goes way too far.

If you aren't a massive special-edition-owning film geek who can spot badly disguised recycled themes... and if you haven't been studying the arts long enough to detect the presence of tedious political commentary, then Avatar may be the best film you've ever seen. For the rest of us, film of the year....maybe?....