Oh my goodness, there is so much wrong with this movie, it would be easier to list the things that are right, so I will:
It's gorgeous! No world suits the CGI color palette better than sci-fi, and the filmmakers were obviously aware of this fact. Indeed, I would say they got carried away; the CGI masked (or, my preferred phrase: cemented over with intent to erase) the astonishingly lame Dances with Smurfs storyline. Nevertheless: it's amazing.
Anytime I can see Sigourney Weaver, I'm good to go. She is uniformly convincing and compelling; the first sci-fi heroine. I love seeing her here, even though it's in a script far less human than the title character of her first film. Oh well.
Sam Worthington can't act. (Sorry, I know that belongs below, but he was such a good robot in whatever that new Terminator film was called that I thought he could actually portray a human. My mistake.)
The connection the Blue Watusis have with their animal mounts is intriguing (though it's also cringe-inducing when you realize it's a kind of bestiality, so let's not go there).
Okay, I'm out of positive comments; on to the glaringly obvious negatives:
Except for the CGI artists, it's apparent that no one in a creative position in this film has any creativity. Whatsoever. The story is as old as Kurtz going native in Heart of Darkness or, if you haven't read the classics, the more recent Ferngully will suffice. In between, of course, Kevin Costner cavorted with canines in Dances with Wolves, which is the most obvious source for this film. Amazing, considering James Cameron is famous for his inventiveness. Not this time. (Maybe that inventiveness is limited to cool guns and spaceships; sure seems so.)
And the story, as old as it is, is equally shallow and unbelievable. It's a hoary cliche to say that the aboriginals of early America were civilizationally advanced beyond the depraved European invaders. In what way? Let's see: they made murdering each other an art, turned the American midsection into the Great Plains by firing the forests to chase bison off cliffs, leaving heaps of carcasses (I'm not making this up) hundreds of feet deep. So enough with the noble savage nonsense. Oh, and they also gave Europeans syphilis in return for smallpox. Fair trade, I think. But still this childish daydream prevails, even among the Hollywood intelligentsia (sic: oxymoron).
In addition to this, Cameron finally shows us what he really thinks about Marines. In his earlier films (shot before 9/11 and the engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq), he respected their fighting brio and made them heroes (Aliens). Not now; now they're blood-thirsty, mindless morons intent upon destruction and the bigger the bone pile the better. Of course, this is nothing like our real-world Marines, Abu Graib notwithstanding. (I don't consider a few humiliating photos torture and if you do, go away. Beheading is torture; just ask Daniel Pearl. Oh, that's right, you can't because they beheaded him.) But since he needs antagonists and the Blue Goodies are oh-so-nice and corporate types are just too skinny and bloodless to shout "Hoo-yah!" and unleash hell, Cameron chose the only other humans available as his evil avatars: American soldiers. Weak, weak, weak, and also insulting and outrageous. I hope the U.S. military never lends him another chopper for a film.
As for what all the fuss is about, my review of that (nonexistent) plot point can be summed up with one word: Unobtainium. Never has a filmmaker's disdain for the public been so transparent as here, where Cameron couldn't even be bothered to come up with an actual real-sounding ore. Unobtainium, as in, "Fortunately, we missed Avatar, as we were all out of Unobtainium, and couldn't afford tickets."
I really wanted to like this film, but it was so ham-handed, and frankly amateurish in its story, direction, and conclusion, that I was required by law to hate it. James Cameron, once the self-anointed King of the World, is now the crowned King of Schlock, and only someone under age ten could really like this film, because no one over the age of ten will fail to see the utter contempt Cameron has for America and for American ideals, as well as for time-honored cinematic conventions.
Oh, and the most astonishing faux pas of all: Here's this very important metal (I never saw any evidence that it does more than float between magnets) that is found in just one location, under the giant tree sacred to the Blue Man Group. But instead of negotiating with them for the metal (maybe there was a way to get it without hurting the tree, we don't know), or, if negotiations fail, simply dusting the area with magic pixie sleeping dust (hey, is that less likely than Unobtainium?) and physically removing all of the Blues to the other side of the planet before they awake, or, maybe there's more than one giant sacred tree on a planet the size of earth where they could move to, OR, finally, the humans realize that, holy cow, this stuff really is unobtainable (sic, that's unattainable, by the way, genius) and maybe we should just pack up and go home and let these toilet-dye folks have tail-sex with their flying ponies.
But no, we need a climactic battle in Act 3, where it looks for awhile like the humans will prevail, but in the end, Benedict Blue betrays humanity (presumably because his walking is more important than every human on the planet) and manages to defeat the Soviet Union. (Oops, I mean America -- same thing.)
Not a single moment of nuance or adult-level thinking finds its way into this cardboard cut-out of humanity as seen from the Olympian perspective of James Cameron, who, by the way, hypocritically uses the most advanced technology available in this world, technology which, by the way, involves strip-mining hilltops to reach precious metals that are required to manufacture his cameras, computers, stainless steel Evian bottles, and his Lear jet(s).
Aside from that, he's a total Luddite, living in peace with the Greenies, or "Greenbacks" as they're called by those who find them Unobtainable. But there's a revolution a-brewing here on the Blue Planet, and one day the nut-tree-dwelling James Cameron may find itself being shaken to the earth by we Swamp People who are sick and tired of being treated like fools and having our money stolen from us in the name of Movies That Are Good For You.
Until then, ride, Captain, ride upon your ego-trip.
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