I will say from the start that I liked Avatar. The Title of this post boils down the movie to its essence, but it is still a fun film. That said, the main draw to this movie is the CGI. I had the fortune to see this movie in 3D and it was even more spectacular.
James Cameron is not known for his small indie budget films and this one certainly doesn't disappoint. Within the first five minutes he probably spends the $4million budget of "The Hurt Locker" just on an animator to make the grass flow naturally. Ten years in the making though, I wouldn't expect much less.
The film follows a paraplegic Marine who just happens to have a twin brother that was accidentally killed a week before he was to fly off to Pandora to help a group of scientists convince the native people of that planet to abandon their way of life so that our country can wreak havoc over the land and mine the planet for a futuristic fuel source.
The problem begins when Jake Sully, the wounded Marine, finds a new life in his avatar (remotely controlled body that looks like the native people) and begins to buck the system, and slowly becomes more of a Na'vi than human. That sounds strangely similar to the plot of "Dances with Wolves" don't you think?
Without spoiling anything the whole disagreement between the native Pandorans, the Na'vi, and the not-so-welcome invaders who wish to rape the planet of it's resources for their own profit, "Us", comes to a head in a battle royale that stretches the limits of what CGI can produce.
This movie is a technical marvel. It is glorious to look at, but that is about where it ends. It is a fund movie and the performances are strong, but the characters are a little too polarizing. The bad guy is hardcore evil. He is so bloodthirsty he probably substitutes his bloody marys with actual blood instead of tomato juice. The "corporate" character is a greedy slimy little worm who has an equally non-existent backbone. Siqourney Weever is the typical tree hugging scientist that will lay down in front of a bulldozer to stop the destruction of a natural habitat. The problem being that the bull dozer has now issue with running over her patchouli scented butt.
All that to say that the only person who really goes through any sort of change in the film is the main character. Everyone else pretty much stays the same throughout, and that is fine really because we are ultimately watching a film about how a man finds redemption in a new world, and how he becomes "complete" again.
The only other issue I take up against Avatar is the preachiness that Cameron puts in the subtext of this movie. The fact that Jake's body is neglected because he spends more and more time in the Avatar machine is a good example. It is pretty obvious and while it doesn't take you out of the movie experience, it is (to me) needless exposition on Cameron's opinion of what online gamers do to themselves all for the sake of their "other world experience".
Being a recovering World of Warcraft addict I can see what he is saying, but is this film about MMOs and the general lack of exercise that our country gets or is it about a re-imagining of history where this time the native americans kill the settlers before they can take their land and spread their "white man diseases"?
Overall this movie was a lot of fun to watch...once or twice. I really don't see this movie as being one that I would watch over and over like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or even Cameron's earlier work "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" when TNT has an all day marathon of it.
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