Take that, America

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2009)

AVATAR has a strikingly familiar plot, because it's so archetypal that you've probably seen it somewhere between ten and one hundred times already. "Dances With Wolves" comes to mind, as does "Fern Gully". This is a good thing: by making the story simple, James Cameron shifts the focus from plot to setting, and of course the phenomenal CGI has been labored over with such attention that the setting totally steals the show. It's detailed and gorgeous and breathtaking, exactly as it was supposed to be.
The story, straightforward and predictable as it is, manages to be quite compelling. The imperialist human corporation wants to strip-mine the world Pandora, and they've got some serious military hardware on their side. The native Na'vi and their sentient living world take exception, and the stage is set for scenes of heartbreak and spectacular action set-pieces. Our hero is Jake, a rather self-centered former marine who becomes one of the natives.
The moral is basically "humans are jerks". That will probably turn some audience members off, because who likes being called a jerk? And yet here we are, in a country our ancestors stole by murdering, relocating, and poisoning the natives, and we're gradually but steadily stripping our own world of its natural resources. Our forests are vanishing and many animal species are on the path to extinction. We want to drill for oil in national parks, because not driving cars is too much trouble. The Na'vi clearly have the right idea.
The movie only has one real problem that I can see: the hero, Jake, has a spinal injury that confines his human body to a wheelchair. Part of his motivation for siding with the Na'vi seems to be the freedom his avatar body grants him. The moral there, probably unintended by Cameron, is that life with a disability can never be fulfilling. It's a rather unfortunate aesop in an otherwise clear-headed movie.