Avatar
USA | 2009 | Dir. James Cameron
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang

Ok, I will say this: watching Avatar from the second row in 3D was an incredible visual experience.  I just find it really sad that in the course of the twelve or so years Cameron spent creating this modern epic he did not leave the time to return to the screenplay and tweak a couple of things.  For a man who was able to make a film about a sinking ship (that we all know sinks) one of the biggest films ever, I expected to be wowed by an original story.

Avatar is an incredible visual spectacle…but it is also one of the lamest, most un-challenging storylines made in a really long time.  Honestly – I would hope (I know I am wrong) that Americans do not need further parables about how horrible it was we decimated the Native Americans, but I guess we do (with a bunch of confused nods to 9-11 and terrorism tossed in for good measure).  Cameron is a good story-teller and had me engaged for most of the film, but when the epic battle started, I had long stopped caring.  I knew who was going to win and was already sated with visual stimulus.  I cannot tell if the incredible oversea grosses mean that other countries like blue aliens more than we do or they are tapping directly into the anti-American “oops we raped the world” message in there.  I am excited for where this technology will take us, but not sure I could sit through the film again.  (See it in the theaters if you see it at all – it is not going to be worth your time on DVD or BluRay.)

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For further reading, here is a link to an incredible article the NY Times did about the inherant racism in the film: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

And below is one of the funniest, but so spot on, summaries of the film’s only-too-conventional plot (by Matt Bateman)