First Things First…
I saw this when it first came out in 2009, but not since. The sequel has been in theaters for a couple of months now, and I want to see before it leaves. So it feels like a good time to watch and review this.
I know it’s long, and I don’t know how well it will hold up without the IMAX screen and 3D effects. (This is the only franchise I’m interested in watching in 3D, because James Cameron lives and breathes this tech.) Still, I’m excited to watch this again after so long. I remember the Best Picture race that year came down to this and The Hurt Locker, and I think The Hurt Locker winning was the right choice. But I really liked this too.
5 Things I Like
5. A Ball-Busting Friend
Grace doesn’t make a great first impression. She’s a total dick when she meets Jake. Doesn’t matter that he served… that he was injured in the line of duty and is paralyzed from the waist down… or that his brother recently died.
The fact is, he’s not the scientist she needs—his brother was. And she has no respect for his—or any soldier’s—intelligence or competence at anything other than fighting.
But it’s all bluster. As they start working together, she still takes cracks at his intelligence and calls him a jarhead. But she becomes a great friend to Jake.
And she truly respects Pandora and the Na’vi.
I was bummed when they couldn’t save her by permanently transferring her consciousness into her Avatar because her wounds are too severe. This is a really good role for Sigourney Weaver.
4. Love Story
Jake and Neytiri have a great romance (even if she was ready to kill him in the beginning).
Sure, there are some tropes in there. Neytiri discovers that Jake had ulterior motives in the beginning, which betrays her trust. And simply telling her he had a change of heart and fell in love with her and with Pandora doesn’t cut it—so he has to win back her trust.
But you can see them grow closer as she trains him, and their comfort with one another grows, too. And I love the scene where she tells him it’s time for him to choose a mate, and she starts listing all the attractive options he can have, but he only wants her.
3. Villains
Giovanni Ribisi plays such a smarmy asshole. And Stephen Lang is perfect as the crazed, bigoted military leader who refuses to see the Na’vi as more than savages.
The movie really benefits from having two strong villains—one in the field, leading the mayhem, shooting the missiles, dropping the bombs, and getting into hand-to-hand combat himself, while the other is a corporate type who won’t get his hands dirty, but who happily puts money ahead of an entire planet and civilization.
2. Attack on Hometree
The battle sequence in which the military brings down Hometree is exhilarating.
And devastating.
They’re not just destroying incredible natural beauty—Hometree is the ancestral home of the Na’vi. That’s why they stay and fight, rather than abandoning it. Many die in the process.
Everything about this scene works—watching the Na’vi bravely but pathetically shoot arrows at the military’s hi-tech machines, only for them to blast missiles at Hometree in response…
Seeing the Na’vi’s desperation as the fight becomes more and more lopsided…
And seeing Hometree engulfed in flames and smoke before finally toppling. It paints this military unit in a horrific light.
1. Pandora
Pandora is one of the most original, imaginative worlds invented in a long time. Everything about it is beautiful and wondrous. The creatures, the vegetation, the water.
All of it makes me want to go back to Disney World so I can get as close to visiting Pandora as possible.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. Human Savior
Jake offers a different take on the “white savior” cliché.
In this case, his whiteness is unimportant. But his humanity is the issue.
Here’s a human using the Avatar program to join the Na’vi with a synthetic body. Yet he’s the chosen one, picked by their deity to lead the Na’vi against the bad guys.
It’s a well-told story, but it’s also a well-worn cliché that maybe should be put to bed. I mean, why isn’t one of the actual Na’vi chosen? They’re not good enough?
3 Things I Don’t Like
3. What’s in a Name?
I know Unobtainium is just a MacGuffin. But really? Unobtainium? Can we be any more on-the-nose?
2. Norm’s Changes of Heart
A few of the minor characters are underdeveloped despite the lengthy runtime, but Norm is the one who it really shows up for.
In the beginning, when Grace gives Jake a hard time, Norm seems helpful and welcoming. But when Jake is chosen to learn the ways of the Na’vi, you can see on Norm’s face that he’s unhappy.
Later in one of his vlogs, Jake comments about Norm’s attitude starting to improve, though he still makes cracks about Jake not having gone through the Avatar training—something he knew all along.
Norm’s envy is understandable, but we still don’t see his arc play out. He’s just suddenly acting differently, with only one small look on his face clueing us in about why that is.
1. Fish out of Water
Some of Jake’s earliest scenes with the Na’vi are cringeworthy. Even though Grace makes fun of him for being a dumb jarhead, he can’t actually be this dumb.
Like, when Neytiri brings him to her clan, and they’re questioning whether to kill him, and he finds out the chief is Neytiri’s father, he steps toward him to shake his hand like a human and says “nice to mee you, sir.”
It’s so dumb.
He should struggle to learn their ways, that’s not the point. But there’s no reason to make him look like a dumbass while doing so.
Tim Matassa