"Out there is the true world and here is the dream".

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2009)

I have never, ever gone to a movie before based on it's pre-opening hype until today. Not that I couldn't have waited, but the opportunity presented itself, and I was already inclined to see it based on some of the positive stuff I've read about the film and James Cameron's ten year mission to 'get it done right'.
The results for me are mixed. Going on the basis of technical wizardry, CGI effects and brilliant use of color, the film scores high. But when you get right down to it, the story is entirely derivative of themes that have been done numerous times before. Without exaggeration, virtually every movie Western ever made had at it's core a similar plot line - whether it be a battle over land rights, water rights, gold mines, or the inevitable clash of ranchers versus open range cattlemen. Chalk this one up to the all inclusive mineral rights category. With energy supplies back on Earth entirely depleted, the planet Pandora offers a rare commodity valued at twenty million dollars a pound. It's called unobtanium. Unobtanium? As in it's so valuable that it's unobtainable except at supreme sacrifice in life and property?
This all might not have been so clichéd if there was even a single element of originality to the story. OK, you have your tricked out mix and match dinosaur knock-offs, like the hammerhead triceratops, but come on. What almost saves the picture from it's overbearing two and a half hour run time is it's exquisite use of day-glo neon and fluorescent color, even though none of it relates to anything in the 'real' world. Which is fine from the perspective of creating a visually stunning landscape coming straight from the creator's imagination. However as I think about it now, I was more impressed with the extraordinarily vibrant use of natural color in a couple of martial arts films, "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers".
And then there's the relationship between Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and the Na'vi princess Neytiri. Here's the mental leap of faith you have to take, and no one seems to have thought about it. Jake Sully is a HUMAN BEING, given a synthetic Na'vi body to integrate with the Pandoran population. He eventually becomes romantically involved with Neytiri, an entirely different, ten foot tall species. How exactly does that work?
Say, let's get back to my earlier mention of the Western genre. When it came down to the final battle, it struck me rather odd that the Na'vi's donned war paint just like Indians would. Not only that, but in the heat of battle, Neytiri and the other Na'vi women turned into vampires. With a ten year time span to think about all this, it seemed oddly convenient that Cameron wound up taking advantage of the Twilight craze.
Finally, and this is a big finally, couldn't the dialog go beyond every known clichéd line in the book? Really, there were so many that it was impossible to keep track. I do remember Colonel Quaritch's "Come to Papa" during the final battle, and I just groaned. The only one missing was 'Lock and Load' and seriously, that single line would have lowered my rating for the picture a full point.
None of the foregoing should be construed as a recommendation not to see the picture, because I think you'll have to judge it for yourself. It's just that I expected more, and keeping in mind the current political and financial mess that the country is in, I do hope the picture succeeds. I'd hate to think that James Cameron would need a bail out for a picture too big to fail.