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 It was nice
to see Sigourney in a big movie again. That’s pretty much all the nice
things I can say about it. And some of the action scenes at the very end
of the movie are about the only reason this got 2 stars.
 Wow, talk
about a promise not kept. I’m going to be in the vocal minority
about this movie, but I really could care less. I have a lot to say
about this movie, and I really won’t hold it up too much.
I saw this in 3-D digital projection, so that’s the version I’ll be
discussing. Whether that changes anything or not, that’s on you to
decide, but this is one of those “big” movies of 09 that just did
not grab me. Think Terminator Salvation or Inglorious Basterds and
you’ll see where I’m heading.
It’s Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, Fern Gully, Delgo, and just
about every single film that either deals with an outsider coming
into a group of people or about Native Americans. The plot itself is
so rehashed that it hurts. One second it’s Aliens, the next it’s
Last Samurai, the next Dances with Wolves, and let’s throw in a
touch of Titanic and political garbage and eco-nonsense for all
those people in the audience who need sci-fi to matter to them
today. I’m fairly certain there’s even a mention of the economy just
as a throwaway line once. Just to make sure you’re paying attention.
The acting is laughable. To say the least. Sam Worthington has no
business being the centerpiece of so many action films. It wouldn’t
be so bad if they’d just let him play an Australian or someone with
his native accent. But to make him American and just have him
BUTCHER it over and over again, it just hurts to listen to. You have
to hope he’s trying, but it’s as bad if not worse than Terminator as
he’s the central narrator of this 200 million dollar opus too. So
yeah, it’s
bad.
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Zoe Saldana is fine, but she
falls into a familiar role for Cameron films, the action
badass female. Why she speaks English is BARELY touched upon
(why many of the Na’vi speak English I’m not sure is
actually spoken about for more than a second). But here is
one of the major missteps of this film. Cameron is always
talked about as paying particular interest in women who are
badass. Well, forget it. She might start off as a badass,
but once she gets a loving for Worthington , that’s all out
the window. She pines for him, cries for him, and fights for
him. |
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That’s it. It’s even worse for the rest
of the women in this film, and here’s a spoiler in case you still
want to see it. The other two badass chicks in this film, Rodriguez
and Weaver, are completely underused and then killed off, like
wasted potential that they were.
So his “love” of action women appears to
have gone the way of the dodo or good James Cameron films. It’s a
shame we had to wait 15 years for this. I think if this had come out
in 2000 or right after Titanic, it might have allowed us to get to a
good James Cameron movie by this time, but alas, we’re stuck with
this.
As for the special effects, a lot has been said about them, so the
less said here, the better. I don’t know why this couldn’t have just
been a straight-up animated film, but whatever.
More problems that come up with this film are the lack of action,
suspense, or any really surprising moments. Everything is so
completely lacking that you know who will die from the opening
moments of the film. You know where everyone is going and everything
is just dictated down to the most minute detail that if you’re
particularly freaked out when Stephen Lang becomes a bad guy, then
you’re a moron. And yes, there is no action in this film save the
last 40 minutes. The rest is just scenery. So it’s Benjamin Button
all over again, a super-long film where not much of anything
happens.
And unobtainium, Jesus, how stupid can we get? That’s the mineral
that the Company (a name he ripped right out of Aliens in their
descriptions but I suppose calling them the Company is more
foreboding) wants so badly that they will rape the planet Pandora.
Whatever. We saw unobtainium in the Core with Aaron Eckhart, so
maybe this is a prequel to that or a sequel. Either way, the science
is never explained, the mineral is never described of what it will
do or why it’s so important, so really, a stupid name for a stupid
idea.
I’m coarse just writing about how stupid this movie was. In a year full
of just utter wins for the science fiction film community like Moon and
District 9, this is an utter failure. The fact that all critics are just
lining up to give it accolades it doesn’t deserve just goes to show that
people would rather see spectacle than a good story, because in the end,
all this ends up being is pretty pictures and some very minimal
explosions and a big fat waste of money.
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