Fantastic - till it fell on it's face!

Rating: 5/10 (26 April 2010)

The characters, environment and action pulled me along like the cartoon cliché of the aroma 'waves' of dinner cooking off camera. The ages-long dream of flight, transcending one's limitations, embarking on a glorious quest over seemingly impossible odds – what more could one ask for? You've got a wheelchair-bound, but (allegedly) battle hardened Marine Corporal who is given Herculean quests along with his legs and strengths beyond human ken. You fight and suffer with him as he conquers his new language, body and environment over the often violent objections of a (slightly overplayed) Marine commander and his crew as well as the 'old-liners' among the native population. Spectacular! He becomes the leader of the combined oppressed native tribes – and the battle lines are set! On the Commander's side you have hundreds of small mechanical flyers, scores of medium flyers and a few massive ships armed with machine guns, canons, rockets, ray weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. On our hero's side you have a few 'horse soldiers' and some flying on large 'birds' fielding hand-held machine guns, spears, arrows, knives and 'environmental weapons'. The tension mounts to fever pitch as our (supposedly trained) Corporal ponders his battle plan! What is his glorious plan? "Over the top, boys – kill the Hun!"  a World War One suicide charge! I could have cried! OK, with more than a few plot devices, a lot of luck and some factors that were barely introduced our Corporal and the natives win – at the cost of most of his human friends, the native chieftain and hundreds of his compadres AND their "Holy Tree/home". Then the narrator has the audacity of declaring that " the sorrowing time is over "! Lucas' Ewocs barely stood to the knees of these natives but put on a better fight! I'm glad I didn't waste my money on this disappointment!