TrackbackWelcome to planet Gymkhana
Warning: moderate spoilers ahead (unless you’ve watched more than four mainstream American films in the past decade, that is!)
So there is this exuberant planet Gymkhana, one with whimsical gravity forces, flawless foliage with neon-like sap, and its own cute indigenous take on practically every terrestrial animal species, only much larger and colourful and maybe with an extra pair of legs or something.
Planet Gymkhana is inhabited by an ancient race: the descendants of a praiseworthy hybrid between Jar Jar Binks, a bunch of elves hailing from Middle Earth and the puny aliens from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, plus a dash of the Smurfs. The people of Gymkhana spend their days hunting, jumping, flying, diving and running around. That is how their planet got its name.
There come the baddies — easy to spot by their lack of feelings, the corporate greed they defend, the caliber of their biceps, or a combination of the above. Then there is a scientist, Ripley, who knows stuff and talks in science-speak and is far more sensible, if also too naïf for the toughness of the situation. Then there is the goodie, who also has strong biceps, is a bit stupid and takes great pride on not knowing a thing about planet Gymkhana, its native population or anything at all for that matter; but he is good. He is an American hero. They don’t say that in the film, but you can tell from the beginning.
The baddies want the money, the goodies have got feelings, you know the rest. Of course, the ignorant jarhead achieves tons more than the witty scientist with all her funny speak and her books (boys and girls: you get the moral of the story!). The goodies don’t have a chance to win (it’s the future and they’re shooting arrows, for Christ’s sake), but the planet is so cool that, man, the laws of physics rock around pages 68 and 114 of the screenplay, right there when they are most needed. And when, in spite of all that, their cause seems lost, good old deus ex machina does it.
The goodie just looks the girl in the eye and coughs and she feels all the screws coming loose in her body. She falls in love, then she rejects him very badly, then something happens and he’s great and she wants him again even more badly. There is the nice expendable soldier who is sensible and helps the goodies and dies at the end. You’ve got everything! There is even the younger, geeky scientist who is unable to strike a match but feels somehow threatened by the beefy main character, so he makes some lousy attempt at becoming the hero of the story (but he can’t because he ain’t on the frickin’ movie poster).
The story is also a metaphor of what’s going on in planet Earth. There are clear hints on the ideas of invasion, preemptive strikes and a military that refuses to learn anything from the culture they’re just about to anihilate; and even more explicit references to “fighting terror with terror” and a “shock and awe” operation (!).
In spite of it all, I quite liked “Avatar”. So I guess I should say something positive about it now.
“Avatar” in 3D is a feast for the senses — and a moving one, too. Just too much of cheap shamanism for me, and too many plastic bricks supporting a predictable script.
I found it extremely beautiful and evocative, and great fun to watch. James Cameron certainly hasn’t “reinvented cinema” (bah!) but this film might well be one of those fantasy/action/CGI films that stay in our memory forever, like “Terminator” and “The Matrix”.
2 Jan 2010 — Films
I subscribe your review, the script is really simplistic and stereotypical, but the good rhythm and of course the effects and photography make the movie work. Of course people not knowing what they were going to see or expecting a deep plot and convoluted characters might have been disappointed, but fortunately it was not my case.
Regarding your comment that “James Cameron certainly hasn’t “reinvented cinema” (bah!)”, I have to disagree. For me, the introduction of 3D is something alike the development of color films. Maybe people don’t realize it now, but 3D cinema is something that will change how directors communicate with the audience, and that’s the revolution, Cameron’s revolution.
I suspect that I’m not getting what you and other people mean by “the introduction of 3D” as something revolutionary in “Avatar”.
I mean, we already had “Toy Story” as the first feature-length film that is 100% CGI. And it certainly looks 3D. Even before that, there was “Terminator 2” with all the morphing and stuff. And there was also “Final Fantasy”, which was the first feature that got close to realistic 3D imagery. And so many other milestones.
“Avatar” doesn’t introduce CGI, motion capture or anything like that. So why all the fuss?
“Avatar” looks amazing because CGI technology gets better and better — but that’s only a quantitative improvement. “Avatar” looks amazing now compared to other realistic CGI films the same way that “Up” looks amazing now compared to “Monsters, Inc.”, but neither “Avatar” or “Up” are milestones in that technological development.
“Avatar” is not like going from black & white to colour film; more like going from normal stereo sound to Dolby stereo (f anything).
@tripu:
You got me all wrong, I was not talking about 3D CGI, but 3D cameras, you know, those special movies you need to put on special glasses to watch. I thought after reading your entry that you watched Avatar in a 3D screen, maybe I misunderstood. People watching the movie in an ordinary 2D cinema miss the whole point, it’s intended to be watched in a 3D cinema. That’s the revolution, it’s the starting point of the future of cinema. Of course it’s not something completely new, I’m not even implying that it’s the greatest development in the history of cinema, I’m just saying that it will change how movies are made, and allow for new directing techniques, new ways for expression in the 7th art.
Why is Cameron to praise if there have been other 3D movies (as in “watched with 3D glasses”) before? Because he created this 3D technology for Avatar, but because he needed theaters to start adapting screens before his big movie, he licensed the technology to other film studios so they made other 3D titles and give cinemas an excuse for the disbursement.
OK, I didn’t get what you meant. Sorry.
So it’s all about the improved 3D cameras and the way Cameron has pushed the industry to engage in projecting in 3D. OK.
Still, IMHO, the language that the media are using (“revolution”, “reinvention of cinema”, “the starting point of the future of cinema”) and that you yourself and others seem to support, Fidel, is a bit exaggerated.
Besides, I wouldn’t be too optimistic about 3D glasses becoming commonplace in cinemas — there had been attempts at popularising the technology literally decades ago, and every time the industry had to accept that the public doesn’t like it that much.
I agree with tripu’s skepticism about 3D cinema being all that “revolutionary”. The language of film has been pretty unaltered since the introduction of sound in the 20s, and I don’t see how this eyecandy (cool eyecandy, yeah, but still a gimmick) is going to change the way stories are told and films are constructed.
Anyway, I loved Avatar big time :-)