Cameron Returns

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2009)

Nobody directs like James Cameron. Ten years in the works, and every minute was worth it. It is the Star Wars of the 21st century. Though the plot is derivative and bears some pretty close resemblance to Dances with Wolves and a little bit of The Last Samurai, it does not ruin a mind-blowing experience. Avatar has a great future ahead of it and, possibly another Oscar for the mighty James Cameron.
Jake Sully, is an ex-marine, bound to a wheel chair. He seeks to make a fresh start on the moon Pandora where his brother worked. The moon has a military run mining colony. The business has brought humans into contact with the local natives, tall blue dudes, called Na'vi. The Na'vi inhabit a part of the moon under which lies a large deposit of valuable minerals, and the humans are trying to get them to relocate. Colonel Quarich who runs the operation, ask Sully to go under cover as a Na'vi, to learn the secrets, to give the humans an advantage. If successful, Sully will get his legs back. The magic of future science and 3-D effects give Sully a handsome genetically engineered Avatar body, and he embarks on his mission. Once on the inside however, his loyalties to the humans start to turn when his heart gets lost to the Na'vi princess Neytiri. Is he willing to fight on the blue side now?
The landscape of Pandora is the most creative and inventive of the decade. There are creatures that you might find in your wildest dreams or your worst nightmares. There is flora and fauna that shine with the bioluminescence of a thousand deep sea critters, and also trees which dwarf the Empire State Building.
I guess the only noticeable problem with Avatar, is a lack of original story. What you see on the screen will blow you away, but all the tough critics, may come down a bit on the fact that despite being the latest in film technology, Cameron uses a very old archetypal formula, perhaps just a bit too schematic. There are a few badly scripted segments of dialogue, but nothing that makes you wanna blow raspberries at the screen.
What is most important is the fact that Cameron's story gets the viewer involved and offers a handful of memorable and likable characters to root for, and some to root against. This is the post- modern era, and originality is rare, but if there is any technical progress to be made in the world of movies and entertainment, there is one name that dwarfs all JAMES CAMERON, and after ten years hiding from the Hollywood mainstream, he is back.