| Saturday, December 12, 2009 |
09:45 - But Movie Guy says leave before the ending, because it was too scary
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091211/REVIEWS/912119998
|
(top) |
Seriously, who is Roger Ebert writing this Avatar review for? Sixth graders?
The story, set in the year 2154, involves a mission by U. S. Armed Forces to an earth-sized moon in orbit around a massive star. This new world, Pandora, is a rich source of a mineral Earth desperately needs. Pandora represents not even a remote threat to Earth, but we nevertheless send in the military to attack and conquer them. Gung-ho Marines employ machine guns and pilot armored hover ships on bombing runs. You are free to find this an allegory about contemporary politics. Cameron obviously does.
. . .
The Na'vi survive on this planet by knowing it well, living in harmony with nature, and being wise about the creatures they share with. In this and countless other ways they resemble Native Americans.
So wait, hamfisted beat-you-over-the-head allegory is now the hallmark of great storytelling? And Ebert has to fill out his weirdly banal, paint-by-numbers review explaining to us what is patently obvious just from the trailer?
I mean, there'd better be some immense plot twist lurking in there somewhere, because—and I say this with full disclosure as someone who hasn't seen the movie—it sounds for all the world like one of the laziest, most predictable, safest premises ever tackled. Whose sensibilities are challenged by this? What monolith of conformist jingoistic opinion is Cameron assailing? Does he (or Ebert) imagine that this is more than just the latest in an endless procession of movies that seek to show how great the world would have been if America hadn't come along and screwed everything up?
|
|
Brian Tiemann
