Taking place on an exotic alien moon known as Pandora (uh, no,
not Saturn’s moon...this would be the other Pandora) a paraplegic Marine named Jake Sully
(Sam Worthington) arrives to take over the research work being conducted by his
dead twin. Jake is to assume the "avatar" of one of the Na’vi, the indigenous
tribe who live on this lushly populated forest world. Avatars
are extremely expensive biological robots that are grown, clone-like, in tanks
and are operated by Jake and the other researchers through remote control. Jake
already likes his new job for the simple fact that he can walk again. But once
he meets with the Na’vi, specifically the alluring Neytiri (Zoe Seldana), Jake’s
worldview changes radically. This puts him in opposition with his employers, a greedy
corporation who're looking to strip mine Pandora.
Main Review Page | SF Reviews |Buy Avatar (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Here!
Nobody was more happy than I was when I heard that James Cameron had finally
returned to film directing in such a big way as he does with Avatar. Cameron
remains one of my favorite filmmakers, one whose careful attention to the
details makes his films very enjoyable and watchable over and over again. And
Avatar is such a scrumptious, gorgeously realized visual feast--the world of
Pandora feels just like a real planet with its own well-thought out eco-system
and animals. Even the human technology is very well planned-out and designed (personally, I’d
love to build a model of the Scorpion gun ship). And the CGI required to
create this world has finally advanced to the point of being photo-realistic. The
boys and girls at Weta, the effects house that did this work, more than deserved
the Oscars they won for best effects. 
But if only Cameron had spent just as much time and energy working on the damn
script. The plot is hackneyed and the characters are cardboard cutouts who
recite lame, clichéd dialogue. We’re never given any deep characterization, and the result
is that the secondary characters in the film--both human and Na’vi--are all just indistinguishable
extras in the background. A telling clue to the main problem of the film is the fact that
the MacGuffin, the object of desire that propels the plot, isn’t even explained
beyond the fact that it’s called Unobtainium (which in itself is a silly in-joke)
and that it’s really expensive. Thus Cameron is satisfied with having the humans in the film act like nothing more
than superficial thugs who like blowing things up, led by the bloodthirsty
Colonel Quaritch (the always good Stephen Lang). 
Meanwhile the Na’vi are portrayed as being these gentle, noble savages who are
all decent and worth cheering for...simply because the stale, one-dimensional plot deems it
so. Cameron punches up things at the end of the film with a spectacular,
all-out war between the human mercenaries and the Na’vi
warriors. Nobody has a better feel for action scenes than Cameron, who
understands the dynamics of cinematic combat and puts them into play
brilliantly, as he does here. But there's a lot of sap to wade through, first--namely the predictable
scenes where Jake learns to become a warrior and falls in love, both with Neytiri
and her people. Story-wise, everything seen in Avatar has been seen before, and done much better--such
as Dances With Wolves and the Frank Herbert Dune novels. 
I wanted to love Avatar, I really did. It just seems to be such a shame for
Cameron and his talented team to invest so much into making Pandora come to life
visually (which is a job that they do magnificently, here) without even paying
any heed to the basic storyline. It’s painfully clear that, once you take away
the 3-D gimmick that it relied so heavily on in the theaters, the film is
basically empty and soulless, regurgitating themes that were better handled in
Cameron's own Aliens. But, while Avatar isn’t a terrible film--not by any means--it’s merely
nothing more than pleasant eye-candy that looks really great (especially on
Blu-Ray), yet is quickly forgotten as soon as
it’s over. That’s the problem with films that are all flash and no substance.--SF
