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The untimely death of lead actor Heath Ledger during the filming of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus gave 12 Monkeys director Terry Gilliam the fantastical idea to hire actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farell to play ‘avatar’ versions of Heath Ledger and not affect his continuity in the film.

James Cameron takes imagination one step further, with the use of ‘performance capture’ technique which allows him to play celluloid god and create an avatar of an actor, whose use is made redundant by the advancement of computer wizardry in cinema and in his most ambitious film till date.

In the year 2154 (when films will still be very much around) Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) a ‘jarhead’ who lost use of his legs in a war is called to step into the shoes of his identical twin dead brother, who was working on a project on moon Pandora (what other name could have spelled trouble). The project involved creating an avatar of himself to infiltrate the dense jungle of an indigenous tribe called the Na’avi – Krishna blue coloured people, charged on lithe-ium for their ability to merge with the forest, and live acrobatically on a gnarled tree which is sitting on a precious deposit of the mineral Unobtainium (a literal pun on the unobtainable). The people of earth want the mineral for Earth’s energy solutions. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Mr. Lang) wants to mow down the place, using shock and awe tactics, where botanist Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) who has created the avatars to communicate with the tribe is a tree-hugging, peace loving interpreter who tries to sensitize earthlings to the hostile situation they have created for themselves.

Back in the day, when studios started making mega-monster budget films, the golden rule was to light up an action sequence every fourteen minutes to keep the audience riveted. James Cameron took even this step one up by sequencing action every seven minutes. The other clipped seven minutes that he didn’t fill up the screen with kaleidoscopic colours and futuristic images, is when the scientists, army chaps, corporate types yap-yap indoors in their drab uniforms and sterile setting. Cameron is not comfortable indoors. He wants the wind beating under his wings; he wants to be the king of the outer-world. This 3-D adventure ride feels strangely 1-D on paper; the story is generic, the characters are cardboard cut-outs, even the star presence of Sigourney Weaver (an alien film doyenne) offers nothing new.

Where the film scores is what he has achieved with the special effects which gives the film phosphorescence in whose glow you sit in the darkened theatre, goggled and lulled – if entertainment is to dull your senses into absolute submission to an art form, then you bet you are going to sit there as his pawn in this video-game of a film. The film is like your registration form into Second Life. Get an Avatar today!

The film also deals with various themes of war and peace, energy and waste, science versus nature, and will have you burying your nose in a pictionary to look out for mythical beasts like ikran, nantang, palulukan which have been conceived at Fox studios. The kind of stuff that turns adults into children – reading up on the Omaticaya tribe, the Blue monkey people, hanging mountain region, cat-eyed shamans, bat winged lemurs – all so recondite to the self. The never ending wonders of the comic book escape.

And in the end, if you’re still left fumbling, how did he do it? Consider the budget. He could have shot the film in outerspace – a sort of inter-galactic film for the price of Avatar – and that would be something worthier, if not escapist as this.

There will come a day, when the avatar of Heath Ledger will walk up stage and accept a best actor trophy on his behalf, with all his ‘soul’. In the audience seated will be the avatars of long- dead thesps of Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, even Sigourney Weaver, each one clapping, each welling up but joyous to celebrate. What an iconic moment that will be for entertainment. Bah Hollywood!

Manish Gaekwad/Hill Road Media