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Twelve years ago, director James Cameron (The Abyss, The Terminator) captivated the world by creating the highest-grossing movie to date: Titanic. It goes without saying that creating a follow-up to such a tremendous feat, both a critical and financial success, would have to push the bar even further. Cameron’s first fiction film in over a decade, Avatar, pushes the visual and technological boundaries of cinema to heights that no director has traveled before, all the while tripping over the finish line with one abnormally large Achilles heal.

Jake Sully taking on Na'vi Training with NeytiriLegend has it that Cameron wrote the story for Avatar in the mid-1990’s and planned to produce it immediately following Titanic. Due to technological restraints (ie no technology existed at the time that would be able to get the job done), the director decided to throw the script in a desk drawer until time and technology would have progressed sufficiently – or so the cast and crew regurgitate in all of the promotional interviews. One decade, $230 million, and a boatload of audio / visual inventions and advancements later, we have our movie in subject.

Avatar is remarkably stunning in appearance and the 3-D element does aid the movie-going experience by submerging the audience in the wondrous alien world known as “Pandora.” The concepts of the environments and creatures are well thought out. The motion-capture technology is masterful in its ability to trap lightning in a bottle; that is to say, to seize and reproduce every minute detail of expression coming from the actors’ performances. The audio is sharp, the editing is tight, the acting is right up to par, and the pacing is reasonably proficient.

Movie PrintThe one aspect of James Cameron’s new sci-fi epic that, when nicked, can unravel his handiwork is the lack of originality in the story base. The most amateur of movie audiences can find the parallels between Avatar and Dances With Wolves (1990) or even FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) without breaking a sweat. I contend that the story, although seemingly reiterated, prevails to be valid today and arguably has a need to be repeated. However this project, from such a renowned director and having spent more than a decade in the womb, should have made it a priority to expand  on the story, if possible. Therefore, it goes to show, that all the glam and glitz in Hollywood still remains unable to fill the void of an echoed storyline.

Overall the film is filled with great moments of action, tragedy, scientific sophistication, culture clash, exploration of humanity, and even a chuckle or two along the way. It contains a mass pulp of imagination sure enough to dazzle any viewer and throws in modern rhetoric to allude to historical events within the past century. Avatar is largely a step forward for technology and is sure to be enjoyed by many.

Strap on your 3-D glasses and head for your nearest IMAX theatre if you have the cheddar and the resources. If such is either impossible or unsatisfactory, feel free to watch the “dumbed-down” 2-D version on the older, 2k HD projectors at your local Cineplex.