Wow. From Transformers to racism. This thread is going downhill fast!
If anything, this film is 'racist' toward humans (and especially toward humans with disabilities). Which I kind of take offense to - it's one of my problems with it (yes, I finally saw it last night).
It's like a giant cop-out... humanity sucks, so let's just ditch it. Now I don't have to "wake up"! It's a strange lesson and definitely appeals to those of us who would love to live in a dream world at all times. I can fully understand why it's so popular! James Cameron is a genius. He has taken the most clichéd bits and pieces of the most popular films and pieced them together for the biggest mass appeal possible... and it takes talent to do that, for sure.
But honestly, I think it would have been ten times better if Jake wasn't in a wheelchair and instead had full use of his legs - in fact, if he had been a fully-functioning Navy Seal or fireman, etc...a fine specimen of a man, if you will. 1) It wouldn't have been so gosh-darn predictable...and 2) it would have made his eventual 'mutiny' much more powerful. Take someone who has it all and is willing to give it all up, and it resounds SO MUCH more than using a character who has absolutely nothing to lose - of COURSE he's going to turn, duh. As it stands, it seems that one of the main reasons he ditches humanity is for the physical prowess of being a Na'vi (all of the technologically masterbatory scenes of him reveling in his newfound glory do nothing but hammer that point home... and they look really cool - that flying was superb and the water! Wow, amazing.). Yeah, he found a sexy, cool girlfriend and learned to respect their ways, but that was secondary.
The major plot holes definitely proved that you do have to 'check your brain' to a certain extent and just have fun. And it WAS fun! But like I told my husband multiple times throughout, as he turned to me with a furrowed brow: "Don't ask questions, just go with it!" -
Regardless of anything else, it's an absolutely gorgeous *looking* movie. And honestly, I feel the need to go further into detail than that, or to see it again. I did not make any emotional connections with it (except for one very brief moment during the time when the tree was coming down and there was a mother running with her baby in her arms - and that's mostly because I have a baby that age), and I'd say that everyone else in the audience was in the same boat. No tears, no laughter (except at some truly idiotic lines... "Come get some!"...really?!), no cheering when the bad guy was defeated. True, the audience, including myself, was abuzz with discussion after it, but all I heard was "How cool did it look/sound when ________ happened?!" And yes, that did indeed look/sound cool. Absolutely no argument there! But the characters were all very one-note, absolutely NO character arcs or surprising revelations. As cool as it looked, it was surprisingly *bland*.
On a technological / cool factor level - nothing currently can top it. On an emotional / story level, COMBINED with technological / cool factor - LOTR takes the cake.
Anyway, I'd give it a solid 7/10. The Abyss is my favorite Cameron movie, followed by Aliens and T2. (I saw Titanic 3 times in theaters, but haven't watched it since one time on VHS when I lost interest halfway through.)
If anyone cares, here are my top 10 movies of all time, in no particular order - and no, not a Transformer among them
- Star Wars (Original Trilogy)
- LOTR (basically one big 10-hour movie)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (first one only)
- Princess Bride
- Pulp Fiction
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Halloween (first one only)
- Moulin Rouge
- Pride and Prejudice
- Casablanca
(10 is so hard!!! This was just off the top of my head)
