We've seen this movie before

Rating: 1/10 (20 December 2009)

If this was the movie James Cameron has wanted to do since he was a teen, then maybe he should have taken better notes, or should have taken a very sharp editor's eye to his script.
Because while this film is indeed pretty and a spellbinding achievement in the most stunningly realistic CG of any movie today, the plot is almost insulting in how stale, cliché'd, and just plain boring, ordinary, and generic it is. There's no surprises to be had; you know exactly who's going to win and who's going to lose, you know exactly how different action (not just fight) sequences will turn out, you know exactly what characters will live and which will die, which ones will have an abrupt Heel-Face turn, and which ones will turn out to be good all along.
The only thing that will be memorable of this movie is its visual effects.
Right from the start, the film does wonders with visual effects, showing us a highly realistic-looking sleeper ship, and a zero-g environment on board, that neither looks overly cartoony or overly CG'd.
Cameron does not overindulge us by making us look at everything in detail, but neither does he rush through details in an attempt to stay grounded to the script. It's a perfect mix of showing us nifty creatures and inventions without stalling long enough to make us think he's showing off.
The Na'vi start off looking quite real, but very blatantly CG. There's a slight sense of artificiality in the Avatars when they are first on screen, and shown awakening and interacting with humans. But as the movie progresses, the effects seem to get better and better, to a point where towards the end, when Na'vi and Humans interact, both of them look incredibly REAL, as though the Na'vi were a huge puppet, and yet it's entirely CG.
Where they went all-out with the visuals, they completely lost it with the story. It becomes less "Avatar" and more "Dances With Wolves In Space".
But the story doesn't treat this as a surprise. Nor does it even try to be distinct. You know exactly how characters are going to react to situations. You know exactly what's going to happen next. You know that the Generic Nerd Sidekick appears jealous and resentful of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) now, but you know later on he's going to become the HERO who tries to save him. You know that Sully is going to be initially hated by Action Girl Love Interest (Zoe Saldana), but eventually get her to love him, You know that Bad Ass Action Girl (Michelle Rodriguez) is going to betray the humans and side with Sully and the Na'vi. You know which characters are going to die. You know that Sully will earn the trust and respect of the tribe. You know that Sully is going to admit he's been spying on the Na'vi, and cause Action Girl Love Interest to cry and scream and hate him and tell him to go away, You know this and that and everything.
It's all so obvious that it becomes stupefyingly boring, and you wouldn't have ever noticed that fact if the movie weren't so much fun to look at.
But while the effects and even much of the story was interesting enough to keep me drawn in, the most spectacular visual effect focus was on the Na'vi themselves... and the Na'vi themselves, as a society, were a breakneck yank out of immersion, and into a silly realization: "They are exact alien copies of Native Americans!" They are exact copies, from the mohawks, to the way the Elder Father and Mother characters look and sound, to the high pitched yipping sound they give in battle, they are EXACT COPIES of Native Americans.
It would seem to me that this element was lazily left in from the ripping off of the plot of "Dances With Wolves", and that would probably be a great discussion point, but like a great many modern "PC" portrayals of Native Americans, they sugarcoat them so much, they become just as racist as the Savage Red Man (Blue Man?) portrayed in older stories.
These Na'vi Americans are so in touch with their environment, they can talk to animals by sticking tentacles in their hair into plugs coming out of the animals' heads.
They can wrap these tentacles around long tendrils from the "Tree of Souls" to pray directly to their God. They have to cry and chant a ritual chant every time they kill an animal. They use bow and arrows, ride on animals, and make yipping sounds like the Natives in old "cowboy and Indian" movies.
It wouldn't be so bad, and it never really ventures into a racist depiction (especially since most of all these are ALIENS and not Native Americans), but the parallels are too strong to ignore---this is not even a metaphor or parody, these Na'vi are nearly word-for-word copies of stereotypical Native Americans.
But since these AREN'T Native Americans and they ARE aliens, James Cameron can get away with essentially portraying them as the stereotype of the "in perfect harmony and touch with mother nature" good guys, whereas the Humans, with the exception of only the obvious ones and the Nerdy Pacifist Scientists, are all evil, greedy scum who can't do anything with a planet except rape it and kill it slowly for resources, as though environmentalism efforts today would never ever work out or catch on. THANKS FOR THE FAITH, CAMERON! It's a stereotypical "White Men vs Indians" tale of the 90s, with the evil Humans being thwarted by the holy Na'vi.
And yet we get the Unfortunate Implication that the Na'vi apparently could not have survived or banded together without the leadership of Jake Sully, White Man Sky Person.
THANKS FOR THE SUBTLE RACISM, JAMES CAMERON!