The MOVIE opens on our hero, Kevin Costner, here portraying a distinguished Civil War era Lieutenant who, upon learning that his leg is to be amputated, rides out on a heroically-misinterpreted suicide mission to -
Oh, wait, that's Dances With Wolves.
Nah, Avatar opens with Sam Worthington (that dude you already forgot played Perseus in the remake of Clash of the Titans) in a wheelchair, IN SPACE. He arrives at Planet Blue Crap - er, the moon Pandora - with the job of replacing his IDENTICAL TWIN BROTHER (who has conveniently died offscreen) in the Avatar project, a humanitarian mission to the Thundercats.
Sam or Jake or whoever the cripple is seems a little torn up about his dead brother for about five minutes (pay attention, this is the closest the movie comes to emotional depth), before agreeing to be God's gift to furries by downloading his mind into a ten-foot glowing blue cat man made from the genetic material of his CONVENIENTLY DEAD IDENTICAL TWIN BROTHER. We have several hints throughout the MOVIE that he may have murdered his brother in an insane plan steal his legs, but James Cameron refuses to confirm this as "possibilities for the sequel are broad and all-encompassing."
Now, I don't want to spoil the movie for you, but a corporation made of NOTHING BUT AMERICANS is trying to displace the NOBLE and PEACE-LOVING glowy blue natives (who share a name with the glowy blue fairy from Ocarina of Time, incidentally), so that they can have the rich deposits of "Unobtainium" (which they need to power their starships or guns or something, the movie really doesn't say much on this) and use it to OH GEE, COULD THIS POSSIBLY REPRESENT MODERN AMERICA AND THE WAR IN IRAQ IN REFERENCE TO OIL IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM?
Anyhoo, there are a bunch of Marines chilling out on Pandora for this or some other reason (again, they don't feel the need for silly things like exposition), led by the environment-hating Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and BOY are they itching for a chance to screw up the environment. The Navis will have none of that crap, however, because they are psychically linked to the trees through braid-penises that -
Okay, seriously? It doesn't even matter. ENVIRONMENT GOOD, MILITARY BAD. Unfortunately, to drive this point home, James Cameron turned to the most unfortunate racial profiling allegory possible.
Ahem: White Warrior meets Noble Savages, who mock him. He decides that their ways seem pretty damn cool, so he joins the tribe and within a month or so is the BEST. NATIVE. EVER. He subsequently leads them to victory against the monumental forces of Lieutenant Surge, drives the humans off the moon, marries the chief's daughter, rides a legendary dragon thing like his own personal bitch and becomes an Avatar permanently.
And the best part?
The humans were trying to negotiate with the N'Avi! The furry blue pricks kept shooting Nav'i arrows at them ANYWAY! The peace-loving natives are the biggest jackasses in the entire crapsack galaxy!
This movie is gorgeous. Nobody can deny that. The action is amazing (if a bit heavy on camera-shake), the leads are gorgeous (Zoe Saldana, we get it. You're hot. No more sci-fi for awhile, okay?), and the world is AMAZINGLY DIVERSE (although its animals are suspiciously Earthlike, complete with blue glowy horses, blue glowy pterosaurs and blue glowy Ice Age monsters). The fact of the matter is, we've been distracted by all the computerized pretty so hard (look up "Avatar Depression Syndrome") that some people tend to forget:
This movie actually kind of really sucks.
