Day 12 - A Film By Your Least Favorite Director
Can I choose Aliens again? No? Ok, Avatar it is. Take all of the problems I outlined in Aliens and fix none of them and you get Avatar. I don’t even care that it’s not original because, for the most part, nothing is. If the dialogue was even remotely good I’d forgive the trite plot. The visuals are cool, yes, but they serve anything. I don’t need subtlety in my movies but I do require something that respects my intelligence. You want a good action film? Go to Die Hard or the Bourne films. Avatar has nothing outside looking cool (and even that isn’t really all that special. It’s fantasy plus neon.) and making a lot of money. It is so thoroughly mediocre for a movie that should be amazing. That’s the real problem. James Cameron can create cool looking things but he has trouble getting me to care about them. The Abyss is his only film that I can truly claim to enjoy without reservation since even T2 has the same annoying-child-actor-problem that hurts Aliens. For a guy that can do pretty much anything he wants he doesn’t seem to want to do anything of actual import. It’s a damn shame that people like Guillermo del Toro and Terry Gilliam can’t get the proper funding for their films but Cameron’s utterly boring films rake in the dough.
Notes:
- It seems like Michael Bay would be an obvious choice here but I like a lot of his movies. The Rock is fantastic and The Island and Armageddon both have some things going for them. Also, I really like the looks of Transformers: Dark of the Moon or whatever it’s called.
- James Cameron is probably better than most directors but it is his lack of ambition that gives him his spot here. I never expect a Paul W.S. Anderson movie or a Uwe Boll film to be anything but crap. Cameron could be so much better!
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