A lot of “ blue screen” lovers and admirers think that a movie is a progressive art, which entertains people, gives a good mood and positive attitude, because people lack it in their everyday turbulent life.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of movie dumps for earning money by their owners, under advertising piles of which it is almost impossible to find something actually worthwhile with a high-quality picture, sound and professional translation.
One critic has recently written the following words: “ A good film in Hollywood happens, but not as a natural product of the “ dream factory “, but rather as a random error”. So, one should find out if it is true.
People like different movies: westerns, comedies, thrillers, actions, romance, etc. However, most people prefer just good movies that take one’s breath, that transport one’s mind to another world, that wake new emotions in one, that make one sit in front of the screen for a very long time, films that change one’s view of the world. Unfortunately, nowadays there is only few of such movies.
If to talk about movie critics, they evaluate films in a more professional way than us (I like – I do not like), they use a set of criteria: the director’s work, the cinematography, the script, the acting, the sound, special effects, the installation, the light and the color and the quality of the picture in general.
It is the general idea that a new fantasy blockbuster “ Avatar” with equally fantastic budget was really impressive to the audience. The essay aims to discover what characteristics made the movie impressive and critically evaluate it.
Referring to the title of the movie, the “ avatar” word does not exist in encyclopedias, but the word “ avatara” in Hindu mythology is a concept that refers to the God’s descent phenomenon to the Earth and transformation into humans and into the other mortal beings. The protagonist inhabits into a different body, but he is not a deity. The paradox is easily solvable: a lot of religions say that “ God is in You”
The word “ Na’vi” also does not exist in the dictionary, but there is a word “ Nevi’im” in the Hebrew Bible, what means “ a prophet”, and the Arabic word “ nabi”, also means “ a prophet”. So, one can see an indirect confirmation of the esoteric interpretation (Johnston 2009).
James Cameron, the producer who is always in the vanguard of the cinema, produces films imbued with the spirit of tradition. Cameron made technological breakthrough, this time in 3D-film, creating an “ almost alive” image. On the other hand, with this creation, James Cameron is quite deliberately calling not even the cozy world of the humanism values, but a hoary antiquity, which seems to be the mankind earliest memory (Wilhelm 2009).
The world that Cameron invented, in fact, only slightly modified the terrestrial world, and the planet Pandora is a metaphor for the Earth planet. One should not be embarrassed by the fact that the Na’vi are blue and three-meter people. Their language was created by a professional philologist on an Indian model, and their history is just repeating the story with the conquistadors (hunters on “ Minerals”) and the defending their land Indians.
Paratrooper Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) is in a wheelchair as he turned out to participate in a war, is sent to the planet Pandora in order to replace his brother, who was killed during a fight with a random person. His brother was a member of the “ Avatar” and was ready to manage the Pandora’s body native citizen Na’vi. A mining minerals company on Pandora is very concerned about clashes with the local three-meter blue Indians and tries to teach them. The technology is fantastic: while the earthman is sleeping, his blue avatar is running in the jungle. While the avatar is sleeping, earthman is slurping a soup in the barrack. However, no one could even imagine that the former paratrooper would fall in love with the jungle and decide that blue Indians are closer to him than in a distant Earth. When the company sends the air force to bomb villages and groves, blue three-meter Jake Sully will be the person who will lead the Na’vi saddled flying dragons to fight (Brooks 2009).
In general, the movie was received by the critics quite positively. It has a rating of 7. 4 points out of 10, according to the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, which also reports that 83% of 275 professional film critics praised in a good way about the film. According to the same aggregator, the film was awarded the rating of 95% based on 39 reviews of the most popular Internet, television, radio and press critics. The critical consensus of the website says: ” The film is more impressive by the technical level of the performance, instead of the plot, but Cameron’s ” Avatar ” is an extraordinary gift to the viewer’s imagination,”. On Metacritic website the film has a rating of 84% based on 35 reviews. CinemaScore is an involved in a market research company, what conducted a survey of spectators leaving the cinema during the opening weekend. Soo, average mark was ” A” (” Excellent”). The survey also showed that the main feature of the film, according to viewers, was the using of 3D.
But in the other hand, responses about the film such as: ” Yes, there’s a cool picture, but the idiotic script!”, ” Yes, it is ” Dancing with Wolves” on another planet!” made New York Post to write about ” Avatar” as about one of the most underrated films of the decade. According to the reviewer, the most important thing, that this is the first in the cinema history seamless alternate reality, the movie on a new level of the peace-building. American reviewers attributed the stereotyped clunky dialogue (usual complains about the Cameron’s movie) and the predictable plot turns in the second part of the film to weaknesses of the movie. The host of the popular TV show « At the Movies» Michael Phillips was disappointed abut that half of ” Avatar”, when the magic of the unknown world opening changes with the routine scenes of clashes and fights.
Chicago Tribune on the pages “ Avatar” is the film which is an apology to the people destroyed by the high-tech Europe, a requiem for them and for the roots, broken away from the modern society. However, James Cameron is extremely optimistic, and his optimism is dictated not only to the requirement of the Hollywood “ happy end”. Cameron believes that the preservation of sacred groves and returning to the Mother Nature cults can save the Earth and the environment from the moral catastrophe. The landscape of “ Avatar” is an ideal pagan landscape full of deities. However, what if the man’s fate is in somehow different? What if the assigned landscape is not a sacred grove, but the desert: natural or industrial? What if his path is the homelessness and loneliness on the ground can take a human being from the innate selfishness towards another being, whether it can be an angel, beast, man or God? What if the convulsions of the modern civilization, destroying its biological and spiritual soil, are only labor pains necessary for becoming the real humans (Wilhelm 2009)?
The movie Avatar is a tale in allegorical form about the end of the “ dark age”. The audience together with the main character chooses Light forces and takes part in the final battle. From the point of energetic power view, the film is very essential, because it has energy, and the audience immersing in the image of the Avatar (which means “ the descent of a deity”) and taking the side of Light Forces, emit positive energy in the Earth’s field. According to the huge number of spectators, effect should significantly improve the earthly orb and help the humanity to cross the 2012 line.
