Blue Pocahontas Anyone?

Rating: 5/10 (13 August 2019)

Sadly, the director missed a 400 million dollar chance to make a worthwhile film about the indigenous peoples of the United States, preferring instead to craft a great white savior narrative set in a utopic "alien" world.
Imagine: a group of natives who live in harmony with their environment, suddenly driven from their lands by the greedy mineral hungry intentions of foreign invaders backed by an unnamed corporation with a profit motive. Sound familiar?
It is sad to see that the supposed "vanguard" of Sci-Fi film-making is actually a weakly retooled reboot of the history of US westward expansion, and the subsequent massacre of indigenous peoples for land and resources. Some scenes, such as horses aflame are particularly reminiscent of stories from the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Others borrow from diverse re-tellings of the Pocahontas myth, where instead of being kidnapped and raped, a local princess falls for a young military invader, sharing with him her culture and bed.
But then, James Cameron takes the narrative ONE STEP further...
SPOILER ALERT: The great white guilt of this great white director is assuaged somewhat by turning the narrative on its head, for unlike the genocide perpetrated against the Native Americans, this time the locals win, aided by mother nature herself... Oscars please.
IN CONCLUSION: Unimaginative and CG-heavy, cringe-worthy dialogue betrays Cameron's own naive view of the way that an outsider would go about "discovering" local customs, and then assume his place in the local myth by going on to lead the people.