Avatar (2009)

Writer/director/editor James Cameron pushes the envelope once more with eye-popping special effects dramatizing a heart-rending story of a paraplegic soldier who is given the opportunity to walk again in the body of his 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned, part-human, part-alien avatar. My first 3D movie (I had seen 2 IMAXes, but not with glasses) was a humdinger, mitigating my fear of heights (lucky, since the creatures and the humans spent a third of the movie teetering next to unimaginably deep drops). In fact, my favorite part was the air ballet at approximately the 1:10 mark of this VERY LONG (2:40) movie. Here's a 10 minute video, "The Making of: Avatar," which showcases the air ballet and describes how the animators were able to capture the actors' facial expressions even in the action sequences. I suggest waiting until after you see the movie to watch the video. Some readers will not be surprised that I loved the color palette of blue, green, and purple (according to a long list of trademarks on imdb, Cameron is known for using lots of blue) used on the planet Pandora. Cameron burst on the scene with The Terminator (1984 and the sequel in 1991), cast Sigourney Weaver as an action star in Aliens (1986), and won 3 Oscars for Titanic (1997): picture, director, and editing. Sam Worthington, as the paraplegic Jake, isn't a newcomer, but he is to me. He does a fine job here, in and out of blue-face. Weaver (some of my faves: unhappy 60s housewife in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997), the first lady in Dave (1993), and, of course, the "bony-a$$" boss in Working Girl (1988)) plays the cigarette-smoking, straight-talking scientist who is head of the avatar program when she's human and a teacher of the Na'vi natives when she's not. Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) is wonderful as the almost feline Na'vi princess Neytiri. CCH Pounder (perhaps better known to my readers for her TV work on The Shield and Law & Order, she starred in one of my all-time favorite movies, Bagdad Cafe (aka Out of Rosenheim, 1987) and I'm always happy to see or hear her on screen) plays the Na'vi queen/shaman Mo'at. Speaking of apostrophes, Cameron hired a linguist to develop the Na'vi language. Stephen Lang, who played a general in The Men Who Stare at Goats, plays a colonel whose scars give him good hair in this one.

Jack's eyes can't register the 3D effects, as a result of the treatment for strabismus (misaligned eyes) that was the latest technology in the 1950s. The 3D glasses effectively merged the images for him, but he felt no need to duck the objects that I saw hurtling from the screen. This gave him more opportunity to concentrate on the story, which he said was a combination of Dances With Wolves (1990), Transformers (TV and film 1984-2009), and Top Gun (1986). I believe him, but have seen only the last (I was tempted by Dances With Wolves but wasn't dedicated enough in 1990 to watch a 3½ hour movie). He also commented that the United States is never mentioned but Worthington's and Lang's characters are said to be marines, and the expressions "jarhead" and "oo-ra" are used amusingly.

James Horner's soundtrack makes excellent use of human voices in chorus. I suspect that most video-gaming geeks will want to see this more than once, as will all the sci-fi fanatics. Themes of diplomacy, corporate greed, science vs. military, money vs. nature, progress vs. tradition, spirituality, and resurrection broaden its appeal, and we have quite the crowd-pleaser. For this viewer, the battles could have been been shorter, but the effects kept us engaged the whole time. We both enjoyed it immensely. Cameron and his third ex-wife (he has four!) Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) are already competitors for the Directors Guild of America top award, and are sure to be in the running at the Oscars in a few weeks.

ALSO: Word to the wise--this isn't for every kid. There's a high body count, and some of the dead are folks we viewers care about.