Decent popcorn movie pretending to be so much more

Rating: 5/10 (6 February 2010)

It's hard to review Avatar without reviewing its fandom and its author's actions surrounding it. So I'm not going to try: I will review this movie based on the fact that people consider it to be revolutionary and powerful. Because not only has this movie turned out to be a blockbuster, it has received rave reviews as well. I expected the former and was flabbergasted by the latter.
It has all the elements of a good blockbuster: spectacular visual effects, a clear black and white morality, attractive stars and fast paced action. But in my mind it completely misses any qualities that might make it a critical favorite. So why is it anyway? What am I missing? Roger Ebert claims: "It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message." Now some people would argue that this message is brought so over the top and corny that it ruins immersion and makes the story too ludicrously black and white. I would go a step further: this has nothing to do with actual environmentalism and pacifism. This is just pretense, symbolical politics that has nothing to do with actual issues.
Enviromentalism is not about being against evil corporations, but about offering an alternative and working for that. It is not about "going back to nature" but about improving our current society in such a way that it becomes more sustainable. In short: worshiping hunter-gatherer societies is not environmentalism, but escapism. It is refusing to improve your own society and instead idealize another.
Pacifism, similarly, is not about fighting with bows and arrows instead of tanks and helicopters. And it is also not about joining a society in which no individualism exists, in which everyone must submit to the greater goal. How is joining the other side in any way connected to anti-war? If this is really meant allegorically, should Western pacifists go to Afghanistan and start killing NATO soldiers? Of course not. Cameron doesn't make his heroes kill the soldiers as a metaphor for killing them in real life, but as a metaphor for "making them go away". Oh, wouldn't it be nice if there were no more imperialists? Well, sure. But stopping imperialism by non-violent means is hard and frustrating work, not glorious pwnage. Again, pure escapism. No attempt is made to reflect an actual solution to a problem, but an imaginary totalitarian solution is idealized.
Cameron speaking in his imagined language at the Golden Globes was a wake-up call for me. Don't pretend this is anything more than a pipe-dream people. This movie doesn't have a message. It just has an illusionary solution that nobody would want in real life.
Once that smokescreen is cleared I hope some people might see the plot for what it is: wafer-thin. We know next to nothing about most main characters, even by the end of this over 2 1/2 hour movie. Why does Jake accept losing his human body and family/friends? How did he really relate to his brother? Why does Michelle Rodriguez' character switch sides? Why are (almost?) all people working for the mining corporation American? Why does Neytiri prefer humans? How does that affect her self-image? How did a young pretender get to run the mining corporation? And why do the Na'vi accept being led by a human? I could go on... for a 3D movie the characters are spectacularly 2-dimensional. One would expect quite a few transformational scenes in a movie about physical transformation: scenes in which different characters mourn the loss of what they leave behind, or curse their dependence on what they're gaining. You know, as happens in almost every episode of say, Scrubs or Lost. It's a cheap trick, but it makes your characters sort of human. And their dilemmas real and insightful. Instead of pure distracting entertainment. If anyone involved accepted that there is no depth to this movie I guess I would give it a 6 or even a 7. As it stands, the pretense of meaning makes the distraction much worse.