Ferngully With Guns

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2010)

This film came out in 2009, but it could have come out in 1969 judging by its hippy, trippy visuals (check out the scene where the tribe join hands and chant as they worship a glowing tree!), its tree-hugging, pacifist stance and its intentional similarities with the Vietnam conflict (helicopter gunships destroying vast tracts of jungle as they attack the indigenous inhabitants).
It's 12 years on from Titanic and writer/director/producer/editor James Cameron has returned with this astonishing visual feast. Like Titanic and T2 before it, it's the most expensive film ever made and every cent of it is up there on the silver screen in amazing 3D.
Paraplegic Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) arrives on the fertile planet of Pandora and builds up trust with the native people through an avatar which enables him to become a nine-foot blue cat-like alien (sounds plausible!).
The Na'vi, the tribe Sully comes into contact with, have a little bit of everything in their creation; a hint of Native American (Mohican haircuts, bows and arrows), a dash of Jamaican (dreadlocks and a slight Jamaican accent) and some African tribal designs used in their costumes and jewellery.
As with the Irish immigrants in "Titanic", Cameron is again on the side of the oppressed underdog in "Avatar." The villains in "Avatar" are greedy, genocidal strip-miners who want to steal the rich mineral deposits of Pandora for themselves (note the similarity with the grabbing of oil in Iraq). Cameron reveals his true colours as an old hippie with this ecologically-correct, anti-war movie (surprising for a man who nuked and shot up everything in sight in the 80s with "Aliens" and "The Terminator" with all their close-ups of gleaming hardware and phallic guns dispensing empty shell casings all over the place, I guess old JC is growing up).
There are also nods to other movies including Predator and Last of the Mohicans.
Sigourney Weaver reunites with Cameron here for the first time since "Aliens" in 1986 and it's always good to see her on screen even if it is a little sad to see one of your childhood heroes getting older.
Once again, James Cameron creates a warrior woman to sit alongside Ellen Ripley in "Aliens" or Sarah Connor in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." She is called Neytiri (played through the magic of CGI by black actress Zoe Saldana).
Sam Worthington is better here than he was in "Terminator: Salvation", but the jury is still out on him as an actor. He seems to lack the charisma that the really great stars have. Only time will tell if his Hollywood career has legs.
"Avatar" is a long film, but it is enjoyable. As with all 3D movies, there are some scenes you just feel were put in to show off the technology and they do seem to go on a little long but the staggering final battle just about makes up for any earlier flaws. Once again James Cameron has pushed the boundaries of what is possible in cinema and that can only be a good thing. What will he think of next?