Avatar

In late 2009 after many years since his last feature film in the director's chair with Titanic, James Cameron finally unveiled his highly ambitious 3D tentpole event, Avatar, which he had had penned for many years while waiting for the filmmaking technology to catch-up. It was hugely expensive but was both a critical and commercial success which reassured Cameron to go ahead and greenlight four more sequels. I remember enjoying the film at the time but just didn't feel the need to revisit Cameron's fantasy world of Pandora, and Avatar has had something of a turbulent story since its release.

Set in the future, a corporation has landed on a planet called Pandora which hosts an indigenous population of blue humanoid figures called the Naʼvi. The corporation has plans to mine the planet for its precious resources and are misleading a group of scientists, who can transmit their mind into a man-made Na'vi's body as an avatar, in order to secretly lure the natives away from their sacred sites otherwise they'll resort to brute force. A paraplegic marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is brought onto the project but soon finds his allegiances torn between following orders and protecting something bigger than himself.

It's right here the comparisons with Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves etc are made critiquing the film and Avatar is certainly not the most original story but I can't deny when rewatching this that I felt fully engaged with Cameron's creation and his ability as a masterful storyteller. The whole experience still looks great when watching today and, despite many great scenes that were cut for time, the story which runs around 160 minutes flows perfectly without any rough points. The cast are also terrific, even when masked under CGI and greendots, and the great score provided by the late James Horner will leave big shoes to fill with the future sequels. 

Avatar is a long film but it is a great adventure filled with many memorable moments and has left me excited to see where the story will go from here as Avatar: The Way of Water quickly approaches. Given Cameron's great catalogue of films, I do wish there wasn't such a huge gap between each release but I guess it's better to have quality over quantity. Here's hoping the wait has been worth it.