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There's an episode arc from the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle where the intrepid moose and squirrel are chasing after an elusive element called "upsidaisium"--something that can instantly turn things upside down. I think that's a good way into "Avatar" for a few reasons. For one, it speaks to the characters' straight-faced references to "unobtainium"--in the real world, a science/engineering joke referring to the impossible element that could make something work, but in Avatar's case, it's the element that the development company wants badly enough to chase the indigenous blue folks away from their magic tree. The term is just as silly as the one in Bullwinkle, and it also matters as little as far as the movie itself goes. There's also an area on that planet that is, indeed, upside down--it makes about as much sense as the big, goofy animals and the blue people. What we've got here, in other words, is a doofus movie with a plot cribbed from any number of old westerns (not just Dances With Wolves), no characters to speak of, and some really clunky dialogue...and it's all terrific.

You probably know this already, even if you haven't seen it yet, as some billion dollars worth of worldwide filmgoers have. And you probably know the terrific part--it's the "you're in this world" feeling that James Cameron and a lot of other smart, talented people have engineered for us. That's pretty much my point--it takes some genuinely smart people, and maybe even a genius or two, to make such a successful doofus movie. Or, to put it another way, it's worth noting what Avatar didn't need--for example, performances. Oh, Sigourney Weaver's there, all right, looking hale and hearty, but she's just lending her presence, much the way Sean Connery used to do in the 80s and 90s. (Here's my idea for a remake--Medicine Man, except with Weaver in the Connery role, calling some younger guy "Dr. Bronx" and having a fairly chaste cougar-romance in the jungle.) It's not Weaver's fault that she's not acting; there's really nothing else for her to do. The rest of the cast, whatever their skill and talent levels happen to be, are all in the same boat.

Then there's Cameron's dialogue, and it's absolutely uncanny. I mean, it's bad, but not just inept--there's a certain on-the-nose heavy-handedness to it that actually works in the world of his films--Billy Zane's villain in Titanic comes to mind, speaking in a way that you can practically read the speech balloons over his head. In a way, my ramblings here tie in nicely with my last post--James Cameron might well be the best comic book movie director ever who never really made a comic book movie. And his dialogue is an important element--I don't think you can learn to write dialogue like that, and I'm not sure it's possible to do it on purpose. For example, in the hero's voice-over (which Cameron freely--I would almost say gleefully--uses in place of character development, literally telling us, at one point, that somebody's character has developed), he explains that his brother was killed because someone "wanted the paper in his wallet." Wow! I mean, is that any way for any sentient being to say that his brother got killed in a robbery? But in a comic book--yeah, of course that's what he'd say. Same with the evil colonel, played in appropriate one-note fashion by Stephen Lang, who's actually another good actor--as he addresses the troops, he helpfully tells them that they're "not in Kansas anymore." Note to screenwriters and playwrights everywhere--that was a good line in The Wizard of Oz, and it will never be a good line again. Except in the comic book world that Cameron has created, yes, it works just fine, thanks.

I'll take this one step further before signing off--Cameron and the movie have been getting some flack for some of the reasons I've talked about--dumb story, no characters, silly dialogue. I suspect, however, that the damn thing wouldn't have worked as well, or maybe at all, unless that all-around level of doofusness (doofosity?) was part of the package. Thinking, logic, encouragement to look inside and question ourselves--none of that goes with the joyride Cameron has dreamed up. It's the coolest ride ever, cool enough that many people will want to go on again--and with all the substance that that description implies, i.e., none. It is a hoot, though.