The Hurt Locker Fails to Impress

Rating: 1/10 (9 April 2010)

I happened to catch the tail-end of the Oscar's a few months back, and when "The Hurt Locker" had beaten out James Cameron's "Avatar" I was understandably confused due to the fact that what I perceived as a masterpiece of cinema had lost to "The Hurt Locker", the existence of which I had never been made aware. I committed to seeing the film as soon as possible. Little did I know just how confused and disappointed I would feel after viewing, and learning more about "The Hurt Locker".
I sat through this film, all the while wondering how it could have possibly taken best picture. The Hurt Locker is a drawn-out, boring, un-emotional film that could be categorized as an "Iraq War Exploitation Film". You would be right if you accused me of sarcasm when I say "There is nothing I love more than marines pointing and shooting guns, blowing things up, and punching each other as hard as they can." This film contains little to no plot, bereft of any perceivable "moral lesson". We appear merely to meander through these soldiers' experiences waiting and hoping (sometimes praying) for something worth "taking away" from it all. If anything I think what we can gather from this film is that "...this one time in Iraq, there was this one guy who loved diffusing bombs..." After thoroughly souring my desire to ever view another war film again, I proceeded to learn more about the masterminds behind this bore-fest. I was hugely surprised to discover that the director of the film was non other than James Cameron's ex-wife. This knowledge, paired with the fact that "The Hurt Locker" was voted by the academy to be superior than "Avatar" I found deeply curious. Which lead me to what I believe is the only viable hypothesis for why such a lackluster film could have ousted such an impressive one. After all, how could the driving force behind the creation of the "classic" film Near Dark (in which the majority of the cast was pirated directly from Cameron's 1986 smash hit Aliens) be worthy of attention, not to mention an award. A conspiracy emerged in my mind:
The Academy, bored of James Cameron's track-record of successful, powerful, outstanding, and emotional films, decided they would prevent him any form of further glory in a mad-bid to humiliate him and confuse the general masses, by nominating a film that was directed by his Ex-wife. A film which--despite it's blatant inferiority--can be passed off as something greater than it deserves due to the fact that it addresses the conflict in Iraq. If you enjoy soldiers pointing and shooting weapons, human beings being blown up, or desert warfare, you will surely relish this film.