Tonight, I went to the midnight showing of Avatar with a friend, sparing my wife, who I have dragged to many midnight showings, none of which she ever wanted to attend, but did because she's the best. But I digress. In the first sentence.
I was blown away by Avatar. The world of Pandora, its inhabitants and their modes of communication, are stunning. I say "modes of communication" rather than "language" because the Na'vi people communicate with the planet and its animals as well as they do with each other.
But I was more blown away when I got home. I generally don't like to read movie reviews of a movie I am highly anticipating before I head to the multiplex, and this case was no different. However, I did happen to read the title of David Chen's review on SlashFilm - "Epic Filmmaking, Epically Bad Dialogue" - inadvertently as I was scrolling through the site last week. So I took that observation with me into the film. Upon my return tonight, or this morning, whichever you prefer, I revisited and read that review, along with Russ Fischer's, Owen Gleiberman's and Peter Travers'. They all reference the same thing as Chen - bad dialogue. And this is why movie critics are generally ignored by the public.
The problem with complaining about dialogue is that these - and most other reviewers - fail to see the elemental issue. This is how normal people talk. These reviews complain about dialogue such as "fight terror with terror," and call it "stilted." Stephen Lang, who plays Colonel Miles Quartich, is described as having "bitter intensity," as a "vicious military roughneck," and possibly the "most intense villain of the year." Forgive me if I think a character described as such isn't about to deliver a Shakespearean soliloquy. "Fight terror with terror" is exactly how this man would talk.
Which leads us back to the critics, who for the most part have two fundamental problems. First, they spend so much time watching "films" that are so disconnected from reality that they have a hard time appreciating it. Now, I have never met any of these reviewers, nor the people I grew up reading in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, or read later in the Boston Globe and Denver Post. But I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that their jobs preclude them from interacting too much with military personnel. Now, that's not to say that I have a wealth of first-hand experience myself, but from the little I have seen, Avatar's "stilted" dialogue actually rang very true. The second problem is that critics are paid to be critical. No one wants to be the critic who says a movie is perfect, and so when presented with a visual masterwork like Avatar, the easy money is to rip apart the story and its dialogue. Was the story of Avatar perfect? No, but it also didn't spend a lot of time holding your hand either. You learn that the military presence is not actually the US military, but rather contracted forces, in one line. If you missed that line, tough. I love that. But two of the reviews I read complain that the story was rushed. You simply can't win with critics.
In the end, Avatar isn't perfect. It could have easily been longer, but I read somewhere that IMAX movies set a time limit, necessitating the two hours, forty minute total run time. I hope that a Director's Cut does emerge, a longer cut of the movie that does build on the story more. But to say it was rushed, or that the dialogue is awful, is taking things too far, and is one of the reasons why average moviegoers have, and will likely continue, to ignore movie critics.
I was blown away by Avatar. The world of Pandora, its inhabitants and their modes of communication, are stunning. I say "modes of communication" rather than "language" because the Na'vi people communicate with the planet and its animals as well as they do with each other.
But I was more blown away when I got home. I generally don't like to read movie reviews of a movie I am highly anticipating before I head to the multiplex, and this case was no different. However, I did happen to read the title of David Chen's review on SlashFilm - "Epic Filmmaking, Epically Bad Dialogue" - inadvertently as I was scrolling through the site last week. So I took that observation with me into the film. Upon my return tonight, or this morning, whichever you prefer, I revisited and read that review, along with Russ Fischer's, Owen Gleiberman's and Peter Travers'. They all reference the same thing as Chen - bad dialogue. And this is why movie critics are generally ignored by the public.
The problem with complaining about dialogue is that these - and most other reviewers - fail to see the elemental issue. This is how normal people talk. These reviews complain about dialogue such as "fight terror with terror," and call it "stilted." Stephen Lang, who plays Colonel Miles Quartich, is described as having "bitter intensity," as a "vicious military roughneck," and possibly the "most intense villain of the year." Forgive me if I think a character described as such isn't about to deliver a Shakespearean soliloquy. "Fight terror with terror" is exactly how this man would talk.
Which leads us back to the critics, who for the most part have two fundamental problems. First, they spend so much time watching "films" that are so disconnected from reality that they have a hard time appreciating it. Now, I have never met any of these reviewers, nor the people I grew up reading in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, or read later in the Boston Globe and Denver Post. But I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that their jobs preclude them from interacting too much with military personnel. Now, that's not to say that I have a wealth of first-hand experience myself, but from the little I have seen, Avatar's "stilted" dialogue actually rang very true. The second problem is that critics are paid to be critical. No one wants to be the critic who says a movie is perfect, and so when presented with a visual masterwork like Avatar, the easy money is to rip apart the story and its dialogue. Was the story of Avatar perfect? No, but it also didn't spend a lot of time holding your hand either. You learn that the military presence is not actually the US military, but rather contracted forces, in one line. If you missed that line, tough. I love that. But two of the reviews I read complain that the story was rushed. You simply can't win with critics.
In the end, Avatar isn't perfect. It could have easily been longer, but I read somewhere that IMAX movies set a time limit, necessitating the two hours, forty minute total run time. I hope that a Director's Cut does emerge, a longer cut of the movie that does build on the story more. But to say it was rushed, or that the dialogue is awful, is taking things too far, and is one of the reasons why average moviegoers have, and will likely continue, to ignore movie critics.
1 comment:
you're wrong: this movie sucked.
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