Avatar

Judging from the name, you might think Avatar is about a young martial artist reincarnated in a series of spiritual warriors destined to save a world of kung fu magic. But that's a different movie. You might also think that Avatar is like Gamer and Surrogates, where a three-dimensional character acts on behalf of a real person in a virtual world. That's not Avatar either.

Avatar is everything James Cameron learned in Aliens and his undersea documentaries rolled into one.

On the one side we have an above-land version of all those beautiful underwater documentaries. The land is truly alien, colorful glow in the dark flora and plenty of six-limbed fauna. Inhabiting this land are the Na'vi, giant blue-skinned cat people with tails and neural fibers in their always-plaited hair braids. These blue critters most certainly didn't come from one of Cameron's documentaries. More likely, they came from a lot of furry art on the Internet – there's no discernible reason for how the Na'vi, who are surprisingly humanoid, evolved from anything else on the planet (remember those six-limbed monstrosities?). They look like they were completely made up. The weird neural fibers sticking out of their hair doesn't make much sense either, but Cameron's much more interested in the special effects of the IMAX experience, so whenever you start asking questions like this—

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On the other side we have the United States Colonial Marines, embodied in this film by ex-Marines who are now working for profit. Their job: safeguard and if necessary cleanse Pandora for its precious metals. Specifically, "Unobtainium."

Now ya see, the term "unobtainium" is a joke. It's a reference to an exotic material in a plot to make some other plot-moving element work. Without it, the plot doesn't move forward. But Cameron, who is at this point demonstrating an interesting disdain for his audience, makes it clear that it's not important what the hell Unobtainium does. What matters is that people will kill for it. If that doesn't make sense to you, then why are you wearing funny glasses in a movie theater anyway?

The Marines are decked out with actual mechs (just like in Aliens), heavy weapons (just like in Aliens), flamethrowers (just like in Aliens) and oh yeah, Michelle Rodriguez as a snarky pilot…just like in…oh you get the idea. The Marines are led by the best character in the movie, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

He's so badass…
* he kicks open an airlock door, braving Pandora's lethal atmosphere just to shoot somebody.
* he jumps out of an exploding ship while piloting a mech with one hand.
* he would rather die in one-on-one knife combat with a Na'vi than give up.

In short, Quaritch makes the movie. I would watch an entire film of him kicking alien butt any day.

On the side of the aliens we have Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former Marine who has lost the use of his legs. He's replacing his brother, who died in a mugging, and because of their shared genetic ancestry Sully is uniquely suited to pilot an avatar – a Na'vi body, basically. So Sully gets shipped for FIVE YEARS across the universe to Pandora and promptly gets lost. Why doesn't this incredibly expensive avatar have some sort of tracking mechanism built into it?

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I'm not sure why Worthington keeps getting these lead roles. It's not that he's a bad actor; it's just that he's terrible at disguising his Australian accent in roles that either obfuscates where he comes from or where he's not playing an Australian. Sigourney Weaver is radiant here, but her character is largely wasted. In fact, the movie is stuffed with so many characters that it's a relief when Cameron finally starts killing a few off.

Oh yeah, the killing. See, the Na'vi preach a love for all forms of life. When they kill a beast, they thank it for giving up its spirit, etc. etc. If you've ever seen any movie about noble Native Americans, Avatar hits all the important points. But apparently, this doesn't apply to greedy Marines, even those just doing their job in a war. Instead of allowing some moral ambiguity, Cameron makes it pretty clear who the bad guys are. He's also quite good at telegraphing exactly what will happen by foreshadowing certain events with a sledgehammer to your forehead. Every single plant and animal that appears in the movie has an important role later.

But you might not care about all that. Avatar's graphics are incredible. The Na'vi are giant, living, breathing beings. The bizarre life forms are terrifying precisely because they're so lifelike. The special effects are unparalleled. As for the plot…

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