Avatar (2009) * *

Directed by:  James Cameron

Starring:  Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana

Stop me if you've heard this plot before.    A stranger makes contact with a race of people whose ways are foreign to him.    After spending time with the group, learning their ways, and then falling in love, he joins his newfound compadres in a battle against those wishing to eradicate them.      That's the plot of Dances With Wolves (1990), Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning epic and it's also the plot of Avatar.    The only difference is that Avatar's Dances With Wolves character, Jake Sully, is originally supposed to infiltrate the Na'vi (a group of blue alien-looking types) to gain information about the moon they occupy named Pandora, so Marines can destroy them and take over Pandora and mine its natural resources.      Jake Sully is a legless Marine, who through computer technology, is able to create an avatar of himself which would allow him bear a resemblance to the blue people.  

Avatar is long on visuals and very short on anything else to care about.     It went on to become the highest grossing film of all time, beating out Cameron's own Titanic.      While Titanic had a stronger backstory accompanying the sinking ship, Avatar's plot is an ancient retread.     Some ancient retreads work well, mind you, but Avatar provides one-dimensional characters (including the blue people) so we can only distract ourselves with the digital visual effects and art direction for so long before we get bored.

I'm not certain how much Cameron even cared about the plot.    He seems more interested in plastering the latest visual technology all over the screen.     I've maintained that characters and story trump visuals every time and this is no more evident than in Avatar.    Anyone who wasn't a fan of Star Wars Episodes I and II (like me) can attest to this.     Dances With Wolves, which I can't help but compare this movie to, took time to establish its characters so we grew to care about them.    The Native American tribes weren't seen as a hostile, or even friendly group, but as distinct individuals with their own personalities.     No one in Avatar seems to have much of a personality at all.    Col. Miles Quartich (Lang) is Sully's superior and is so gung-ho and muscle bound that he is nearly a parody of gung-ho Marines you see in other movies.     Sully himself is rather mundane as played by Worthington and we're not much moved when he decides to stand with the Na'vi in their fight.    The actors who play the Na'vi are of course digitally disguised but nobody really stood out anyway.

Avatar, from a technological and visual standpoint, is extremely well done.    Cameron has never been afraid to test the waters with the latest movie technology.      But soon enough, we find ourselves witnessing a gun and laser battle like the one in Return Of The Jedi, in which the Ewoks subdued the Empire with rocks, gadgets, and spears.    Sully's avatar battles Quartich's avatar in giant At-At looking things and half of the moon is blown up.

Quick question on this:  Is it wise for the bad guys to destroy half of the surface of the moon they wish to mine with high-tech gunplay?    Any plans they had for the forests may have to be put on the backburner.