It ought to draw us to debate the love-hate relationship of science and technology!

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2009)

It's interesting and it's exotic, and so imaginatively rendered! Indeed, a cinematic thrill-ride! The film's CGI effects deliver a natural and unspoiled world to compare with a world of machines, and its digital characters are gorgeously stunning to behold! And the film does seem like one amazing futuristic action-battle razzmatazz, directed with the most uncanny computer-generated 3-D technological feat, James Cameron's epic film is, in fact, an eco-minded epic, gastulated with the most humanly issues, universally familiar ever since the colonial times. Indeed, the film's rich themes are immensely dark! Indeed, its story injects themes of colonization, imperialism, militarism, cultural differences and cross-cultural communication, and genetic engineering...all of which any misstep taken could be disastrous to peace, nature and humanity.
Needless to say, this film does again echo Cameron's trademark film themes of corporate greed and the love-hate relationships with technology. Indeed, like the love between Jack and Rose in Titanic,' this love between the movie's Jake and Nevtiri, is solid that could only wither when 'death doth them part.' And in war, there will always be those who'd be willing to fight as long as it's a just war, as exemplified by Michelle Rodriquez' Trudy.
James Cameron's film captures two worlds... Earth that is highly and technologically advanced and which we are familiar, and the other, a seemingly 'primitive' and physically-fit civilization of the Pandora planet, in which terrain and life remains little altered since God's generous Creation! The year is 2154, the year when modern and advanced technology has given way to the moist exclusive and unique weaponry and robotic achievements for war and science does allow avatars to be created for one human race to look like another.
Wouldn't anyone be as flattered as Sam Worthington's Jake Sully to be selected to be as part of the exploration team of the exotic Na'vi world, especially when it's headed by the brilliant botanist, Sigourney Weaver' Grace. After all, their mission is for the good of human curiosity, scientific research, and knowledge! After all, Jake does understand that his twin brother had died while on the same mission, and that, he has the same genetic match of his brother to easily replace him without posing any unsuspecting lab complication. As we follow the wheel-chair bound Marine veteran in his avatar status into the Pandora planet, what is captured is so amazingly dreamlike. It's a world filled with mysticism, and in which nature thrives in absolute pure beauty and in abundance, with blue-skinned, golden-eyed, and very tall and slender beings functioning with and around nature, and complying with nature's forces... sans technology; sans machines. Indeed, an absolute contrast to Jake's own harsh world of man-created machines and scientific labs! Though the presence of Grace serves to remind Jake of his mission, it is in Pandora that Jake finds his rebirth of life.... his ability to walk and fly without constraints, a refreshingly new way to live, and he is also falling in love. And Jake does enter a world in which unimaginable creatures, like viperwolves, thanators, and banshees,roam!
Oh, I do love the scenes in which Zoe Saldana's Neytiri, under the order of her mother, the Na'vi shaman Moat, teaches Jake the survival tactics of the Omaticaya people. My favorite moments are when Jake tries to control and bond with a banshee, and later, with the Direhorse! But when Jake discovers the real reasons for the interests of Center's Administrator (Giovanni Ribisi's Parker Selfridge) and Stephen Lang's Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) in the Pandora planet, will he continue his mission? The Pandora planet has a rich natural resource, a rare and valuable mineral called unobtanium, deposited beneath a Hometree. Will Jake continue his scouting for Colonel Quaritch's soldiers and lead them to the mineral deposits? And will Grace and all her team members, including Jake, support the exploitations of Pandora's inhabitants? Will Jake betray his Earth people and can he be able to win Neytiri and the Na'vi people's trust? What if he goes against Selfridge and Colonel Quaritch? After all, these evil and greedy two have access to the lab that controls his avatar!
What follows is our observance of the character dealing with their conscience, as Pandora continues to face attacks and destruction, both from ground and from air, as nature and people are blown to bits! The amazing CGI effects make the battle - between Earth's military-industrial forces and the oppressed, arrow-bearing inhabitants of the Pandora planet - very engaging. And Director Cameron does take his story to its climax, ultimately reminding us that nature is not a force to be reckoned. And ultimately, this film is about 'good' winning over 'evil.' Every character, human or digital, is interesting to follow, providing his or her conscience to his/her role in delivering the film's themes, And overall, the film is spectacularly mesmerizing and very enjoyable!