THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by James Cameron. Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. Action/Sci-fi. USA, 165 minutes. UK-12A

He did it with TITANIC, and now he’s done it again. The sci-fi fantasy writer/director James Cameron dreamed up over a decade ago and then spent years creating the technology to make his George Lucas-style dream possible has finally arrived. And it’s nothing short of shock and awe sensational.

AVATAR delivers the lot: unique spectacle, breathtaking sights, sweeping vistas, epic imagination, pulse-pounding thrills, fabulous 3D and an engaging story that deliberately touches base with current global concerns and War on Terror politics. True, the central conceit is yet another fish-out-of-water Romeo and Juliet spin, but that in no way detracts from what Cameron has achieved in the monumental, sea-changing filmmaking department. The surprise in this clash of civilizations is there are just so many unheralded surprises after all the early dismissive talk of Smurfs, video game looks and FERNGULLY. After the death of his identical-twin scientist brother in 2154 AD, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) takes his place to become an Avatar on the idyllic world of Pandora. There a human outpost is trying to colonise the Na’vi, the 12 foot blue indigenous race, to create a bridge of trust by using genetically engineered Avatar bodies to walk among them in familiar form and hopefully convince them to give up the rare mineral needed to solve Earth’s energy crisis without a struggle. It’s when Jake goes more native than expected, falling for clan princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) that he ends up fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. The final airborne battle between the nature-loving Na’vi and the war-mongering humans, led by hawkish mission commander Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is astonishing and redefines the action movie. What is so impressive about AVATAR is how much of a fully formed piece it is. The fluorescent flora and fauna of Pandora has been meticulously thought through from its exotic insects, giant airborne reptiles and birds, dinosaur-like beasts and dog-like animals to the mental way the Na’vi communicate with their Mother Nature. Graphic nods to Cameron’s THE ABYSS (like the underwater feel of the day-glo Tree of Souls) and ALIENS (the robot exo-skeletons outdoing TRANSFORMERS) don’t go amiss in this tale of good aliens versus evil earth people with an effectively heart-felt love story at its core. While it’s all about the pristine visuals, clean cut fantasy design and technological immersion, the actors do shine through the hi-gloss wizardry and motion-captured imagery. In their Na’vi form Worthington, Saldana and Sigourney Weaver (playing no-nonsense botanist Grace Augustine) score exceptionally well, the half-animation process solving much of the deadeye performance problem that has dogged other similar e-motion endeavours. Lang plays just about the best screen villain since Heath Ledger’s Joker too - his TERMINATOR-like endurance is another keen in-joke.

Just as he promised Cameron has pushed the creative envelope into never-seen-before and groundbreaking territory to craft an entertainment that significantly raises the bar for others to follow. If they can! AVATAR is absolutely amazing.

ALAN JONES

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