Avatar (2009)

Rating: • • •
Age Recommendation: 15+

If you take Disney's Pocahontas, combine it with Dances with Wolves, and replace the Native Americans with tall blue cat people, what you get is James Cameron's Avatar. For you cartoon watchers out there, do not be deceived; this Avatar has nothing to do with The Last Airbender. And, in my opinion, this movie is far overrated.

Instead of white men looking for gold, as in Pocahontas, you have army guys looking for "unobtanium," a fictional element which looks something like a floating hunk of metal and sounds like something out of Dr. Seuss. With a strangely placed "support our troops" message, the hero is a wheelchair-bound ex-soldier (Sam Worthington) who joins an experiment led by a missionary scientist (Sigourney Weaver) to control the body of a Na'vi (tall blue cat person). Like Dances with Wolves, our soldier hero is soon adopted, at first reluctantly, but then enthusiastically by the tribe as he overcomes a series of linguistic barriers and undergoes the ritual all Na'vi youths must complete to become a warrior. And then he has to lead them in an epic battle for their homeland.

The visuals are breathtaking at times, but if you're looking for the cute fuzzy sidekicks of Pocahontas, you're looking in the wrong place. Not a single creature on this planet has a strand of hair excepting the Na'vi, or feathers or scales, despite the amazing advances in computer technology that allowed for Narnia, Ice Age, Bolt, etc. Instead, they are all skin and bones and extra limbs and mandibles for jaws. The floating mountain range is awesome and the flora is cool if you like the idea of venus flytraps pimped out with neon lights and cottonwood seeds that float through the air like jellyfish through water. Oh, and you know how American Indians are always portrayed as having a "connection" with nature? In Avatar, the connection is physical. The Na'vi have tentacles hidden in their braided hair that serve as a USB linking their brains to those of the six-legged hairless horses or four-winged dragon bird things they use for transportation.

Avatar is not without its emotional moments. With a beautiful score of music, you get to watch main characters die, at times by the handful. There is drama, but this film is not a drama. There is humor from time to time, but it's not a comedy. It's sci-fi, but it's no space epic. The closest category seems to be a war movie, but even that is just one element. This is a movie that's not about the acting, or any one element, but instead about the spectacle. While James Cameron attempts to pass off his tale as an original story, it is really just a collection of overused plot elements set in a unique but still very familiar alien world.

Summary: Is Avatar entertaining? Yes. Is it amazing? Not by my standards. The plot is recycled, and with 99% of the movie computer generated, it's hard to take the acting seriously. Overall enjoyable for families, friends, whoever.

The Good: not a dull moment, music, scenery (especially the floating mountains), action sequences, engaging
The Bad: hackneyed plot, attempts to sexualize blue cat people, hideous creatures
The Even Worse: nothing