Thanks to Christian Lowe for the review. This movie sounds impressive, but yet again, Holly-weird has decided to portray private industry as the bad guy. Pffft. For that, I will more than likely watch this movie as a rental or at the cheap theater in town when it gets there.
This gets old, and it is a slap in the face of the thousands of contractors currently in the war, who have served in the war at one point or another, and most importantly, have been killed or maimed in this war. Thanks James Cameron for nothing. Next. –Matt
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Avatar Thrills, but Troops Take Hit
Military.com – Christian Lowe
Dec 17, 2009
It’s pretty simple.
Spend a gazillion dollars on computer animators; concoct an entirely new language, throw the whole thing on another planet with ten-foot-tall aliens that ride dragons and plug into their extraterrestrial horses with biological data cables and add some jet-hovering, super-fortress gunships, belt-fed blasters, and latter day V-22s and you’ve got yourself a pretty good action movie formula, right?
Now make it all 3-D.
That’s exactly what writer/director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic) tried to do with what is reportedly the most expensive film ever produced. His latest movie Avatar — which opens in U.S. theaters today — certainly lives up to its billing as a visceral assault on the senses. Think of the most gut-wrenching roller coaster ride of your life — and stretch it two and a half hours.
Not bad for the $10 admission price. But, as with most big-budget movies coming out of today’s Hollywood, all that glitters may not be gold.
While Avatar’s visuals and the 3-D effect on the big screen could herald a whole new genre of movie making (Cameron reportedly has plans to remake some of his most famous films in 3-D), it’s tough to ignore your sore bum after sitting through 150 minutes of a storyline that could have been scripted by a group of high school drama students.
And to make matters even worse, the script takes an unintended but vicious swipe at the military that will be hard for Military.com readers to stomach.
The story revolves around Jake Sully, a former Marine who’s given a second chance at life by transferring his consciousness through scientific wizardry into an alien body known as a Na’vi. You see — and this is where it gets pretty clichéd — the Resources Development Corporation has a mining operation on the Na’vi home planet Pandora extracting a mineral called “unobtanium” (try not to laugh) that they can sell for about a million dollars an ounce.
And, go figure, a tribe of the idyllic Na’vi have their Valhalla-like village sitting atop one of the largest deposits on the planet.
Sully’s job is to infiltrate the tribe and convince them to move out before being forced out by RDC’s army of contract warriors. Meanwhile, he’s been usurped by the knuckle-dragging military commander Col. Miles Quaritch to gather intel on the village’s vulnerability — call it a “warrior-diplomatic” mission.
Well, go figure, Sully-as-Na’vi falls in love with the tribal chief’s daughter, aces his tribal skills training and goes fully native, working to stymie RDC’s efforts at evicting the tree-hugging ETs.
And this is where it gets really dicey.
Sully goes on to help lead a massive ambush against the human forces ordered to blast the Na’vi from their village. The problem is, it becomes kind of difficult to cheer for the aliens since they’re a.) killing a lot of humans during the assault and b.) those humans look a lot more like everyday Marines or Soldiers than gun-slinging Blackwater mercenaries. It’s hard for at least this reviewer to see the entertainment value in blowing up transport ships full of Marines, no matter how malign their mission might be.
In the end, if you can bring yourself to set aside the bad storyline and anti-human carnage, Avatar is an amazing experience. And since there’s — so far — no way to view movies in 3-D on your 52″ flat screen, the film is one of those you’re going to need to see in the theaters. For the pure thrill, it won’t disappoint.
Before assuming editor duties at Defense Tech, Christian was a senior writer for The Politico covering defense and national security issues after spending five years with the Military Times newspapers in Springfield Va. Read more.
Review here.