At the very last moment, as the DVD was being released, I went to see “Avatar” in 3D last Thursday night.
It certainly wasn’t as good as its besotted admirers would have it. Nor was it as bad as Jeff Vrabel claimed, although I enjoyed his iconoclastic take on it.
On the plus side, I’ve never seen anything like it, in terms of the visuals. It was richly beautiful, in spite of the Viewmaster distraction of 3D. Which is better than it used to be, but still not convincing — yeah, it looks like things exist in more than one plane, but the items that pop out in front seem themselves to be flat, 2D, like figures in a pop-up book, not realistic at all. You are conscious of the artifice of it at all times (not to mention the fact that anything I’m not looking straight at is out of focus — although maybe that was the effect of wearing 3D glasses OVER my prescription specs). If you want to make something seem real, give me the chiaroscuro cinematography of “The Godfather,” which went much further toward making me feel I was there than these cheap tricks.
I’ll also say the premise, the central plot conceit, is also intriguing — the idea of a character projecting his avatar into a reality (as opposed to a computer-generated virtual reality) that he can’t otherwise enter. Although I have to say that it SOUNDED better, when I read it in advance, than it worked in the film.
On the other hand, there’s the plot. As my son said as we left the theater, he thought it was better done in “Dances With Wolves.” I wouldn’t condemn it quite that strongly, since I regard “Dances With Wolves” as one of the worst films ever made (although nowhere near as bad as the David Lynch abomination, “Dune”). The problem with “Wolves” was it’s triteness, exacerbated by the fact that Hollywood acted as though it was profound and original. (Folks, Mark Twain thought the whole “Noble Red Man” theme had been done to death by James Fenimore Cooper in the first half of the 19th century, and I’m inclined to agree.) At least “Avatar” gives it a new twist, and the dazzling visuals help you forget that you’re watching yet another screed on how wicked white men are — especially corporate white men and military white men. Got it. People in positions of power do bad things sometimes. Noted.
It was particularly interesting for me that I saw this in the middle of reading Flags of Our Fathers, a thoughtful examination of a time in which this country actually celebrated its military and its core culture, to the point of exaggeration that was painful to the subjects of adulation — especially the real-life Noble Red Man Ira Hayes, who ended up drinking himself to death back in the days before we invented the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress. (Fascinating anecdote illustrating the complexity of actual heroism: When fellow flag-raiser Rene Gagnon was identified and was about to be whisked from the troop ship to Washington to be celebrated, Hayes warned him that if Gagnon told the brass that he, Hayes, was also one of the flag-raisers, he would kill him. When Gagnon ratted him out anyway, Hayes didn’t kill him, but never spoke to him as he gradually killed himself.)
But if you set all that aside, “Avatar” was quite enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again, without the distraction of 3D. I’m leaving it in my Netflix queue.
Speaking of Netflix, I’ll say this for “Avatar”: It’s far better than the execrable “Inglourious Basterds.” I’ve never liked Tarantino, but this took my dislike to a new level. Even as satire, even as self-indulgence, this was badly done, as Tarantino went out of his way to trample on any chance that the film had to redeem itself on even the lowest levels. The title, complete with deliberate misspelling, does capture the film perfectly. I’d far rather see a trite re-imagining of the Noble Red Man theme than this desecration of everything in sight, including the Holocaust. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
On the other hand, to end on a high note, the wife and I (thank goodness I wasted my time on “Basterds” while she was out of town) watched “Fever Pitch” — the original with Colin Firth, not the American remake — Saturday night, and it was wonderful. It made me wonder how much better “High Fidelity” might have been had it adhered to the original setting of Nick Hornby’s masterpiece. But then there would have been no Jack Black as Barry, and pop culture would have been poorer…
