Spectacular Movie Entertainment

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2009)

Great movie entertainment that is simply spectacular with action, emotion, and movie-house morality. I really liked the realistic way the animated Na'vi moved so gracefully though the trees, and later through the air. The movie characters were evocative and emotional -- unlike most motion capture characters, and even better than Lord of the Ring's Gollum -- far better than Disney's A Christmas Carol.
Writer/director Cameron rapidly sets up the conflict between the humans and the Na'vi. Jake and the audience spends a long time with the Na'vi, and the wonderful visual world they inhabit. The audience is won over by the time the bulldozers arrive.
Although the story is predictable, that is because it is archetypal. The story is like the European migration into North America and the displacement of the native Americans. Visually it is more like Europeans coming to tropical Africa -- perhaps like displacement of natives in Nigeria for petroleum. There is the more elemental conflict between the spiritual, grounded and connected natives with the mechanized and money-grubbing humans.
Sam Worthington's performance as Jake shows his emotional shift in loyalties, and this is the best performance in the film. The supporting characters are one-dimensional. Zoe Saldana's Neytiri is combative and cat-like. I am not sure she handles the slow scenes as well as she might. I liked seeing Sigorney Weaver too.
I want to see it again.