Avatar (2009)

In 2154, the RDA corporation is mining Pandora, an Earth-like moon of the planet Polyphemus, in the Alpha Centauri systemm Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), the administrator employs former marines as mercenaries to provide security. The humans aim to exploit Pandoras reserves of a valuable mineral called unobtanium. Pandora is inhabited by a paleolithic species of humanoids with feline characteristics. Physically stronger and several feet taller than humans, the blue-skinned indigenes live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa.

The film serves multi-dynamic purposes: to entertain, to inspire, to revolutionise, to persuade, to shock and the list extends. The films dynamics are somewhat overwhelming which detracts attention away from the narrative structure, focusing all attention on the visuals which are inspiring at every level. The film is a mere spectacle, visually pleasing for the eye, more than a comprehensible narrative that we can all fully appreciate. You will find yourself indulging in and out of the story, placing the plot fragments together in your mind, serving as an analogy to Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who places the fragments from Pandora into a logical form that he tries to make full sense of.

Wortthington is a paraplegic former marine who arrives on Pandora to replace his murdered twin brother. He provides a strong, effortless performance, alongside Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the head of the Avatar Program, who considers him an inadequate replacement for his brother. The film raises issues around modern aesthetics, contemporary war solutions, imperialism, biological transformations. The list continues. Sigourney Weaver fully embraces the demand needed from her compromising role, and delivers another satisfying, if solemn, performance. The A-list cast did not feel overloaded, as the film offered plenty of space and development for stars to extend their talents, and embrace the demand Avatar needed from their representation of an elite humanity.

The film requires a more specific audience then will at first seem apparent. A family film you may assume, but the film is deeper and more rigorous that a family unit can appreciate, as the film targets certain individuals from the audience, and leaves the others behind. If you get lost in the narrative world, in the jungle, you will fight your own way out. Your peers will be too occupied struggling their own way out, figuring out the loops and holes of the film for themselves. Once lost, however, the aesthetics are left to enjoy. The film is demanding of you, but if you submit to its narrative world, you will not be totally alone, the whole world before your eyes will be there to save you.

Knowing (2009)

Knowing, written and directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City) follows a young boy named Caleb who receives Lucinda's envelope from fifty years ago. Lucinda, a young school girl at the time dies of a supposed drug overdose and time ellipses to the present day. Caleb’s father John Koestler, a widower and professor of astrophysics, takes notice in the paper, and further examination makes him realize that part of these digits form dates and death tolls of every major disaster over the past fifty years, in chronological order, and suggests three disasters yet to come.

Knowing is a clever, deep and iconographically beautiful. The plot isn’t the prominent aspect of the film, but the way the plot is unveiled and structured. Scenes complement each other and lead to a satisfying and unpredictable conclusion. In this way, the film is a hybrid between an initial thriller that transforms into a rather astonishing sci-fi epic. The end of the film when we discover that the world will soon end in which Caleb is rescued by aliens is both sentimental and true to the genre transformation that the film explores.

Knowing doesn’t only have astonishing special effects, but they integrate so well with the films style and premise that the plot flows to us through the image which creates the experience. In the two initial accidents in the plane and train respectively, the effects are not overwhelming because they underpin the films style and message so well. Many will discredit Knowing, not providing the film with the attention it deserves. Unlike The Day After Tomorrow (2004) in which the effects drown the plot and overall story, Knowing uses its effects to build upon and expand the narrative which transpires it into a contemporary sci-fi epic.

Knowing has good performances from John Koestler (Nicholas Cage) and Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) but they are not astonishing. This somehow doesn’t matter because the script is so compelling and imaginative that it forces the characters to flow with it, discarding the overall shallow performances that are represented.

The film starts of with an exploration to the films history, it then drives us into a sense of integrity during the middle of the film and then returns us into a future state, in contrast to the sense of history at the beginning. The film seems like it covers the earths history, not just the previous fifty years. Overall Knowing is a compelling and highly imaginative sci-fi epic. A must for fans of the genre and most certainly beyond.

Resident Evil : Extinction (2007)

Resident Evil: Extinction follows the path of Alice (Milla Jovovich), who is now alone in the desert wastelands of the remains of the United States. Alice now has superhuman strength and psionic abilities gained from her brief imprisonment by Umbrella. With a whole new locale in the desert with an isolated fill, the film tries to somehow fill this sense of isolation with a rather complicated, hi-tech series of action sequences which actually erased what was a least a little scary from the previous two films.

Where the first films used the locale to create a sense of tension from this mindless creatures, the setting in this film relies so heavily on its action sequences and technology that it somehow loses its sense of purpose, disorientating the feel that made the series unique in the first place. It’s even more humorous how the film pays homage to the likes of Day of the Dead with their experimental ‘zombie’ but turns away from what made them films work into something unnecessarily complex and technological as if to develop on something that was already good in the first place. Resident Evil: Extinction without doubt tried to be ‘different’ from your average zombie horror film, but its own technology got in the way of what could have been a reasonable sequel to a series that has never quite set off anyway.