Avatar (2009)

I loved the honest fingerpointing. Depicting the Big-Brother status of USA in the brutally selfish RDA Corporation. Mining for precious Unobtanium without care for the well-being of locals! I had prepared myself for an uninterupted 2hr40min joy-ride; with caramel popcorn et al. Unfortunately I couldn't get me a 3D/IMAX version of the movie...but I consoled myself that an extra dimension is just a overrated gimmick. The back-story was very childish - Pandora (the moon for Planet Polyphemus!!) being mined 200 years in the future by Marines and Contract Engineers! a bio-neural network of trees; & the Avatar program !! remote controlled DNA hybrids; & yet, Jake Sully's leg operation is too expensive... is this where Sci-Fi heading towards?

The botonist-cum-socialworker teaching Na'vi natives English! (puhleeese!) Grace's role (Sigourney's looking real old) on Pandora remains undigested. Maybe the intent was not explained properly. & the main-story: A guys acceptance of a new culture, as he romances the beautiful princess, amidst a visually-stunning habitat - HAH.. double HAH! A very predictable plotline (except I had expected even the Sacred Trees to rise up & fight.. a la LOTR2); the roles of the pilot Trudy, the Colonel, the anthropologist friend and the Na'vi prince seem sleep-written, drowned in cliches. The dialogues didn't even amuse. 30mins into the movie I felt that the extra dimension surely would have made it a bit more palatable.

The saving grace; which earned all my stars for the movie: the unearthly imagination for the Pandoran flora & fauna. The colours, the imagery, the landscapes, the night-lights... awesome.

Moments that I seriously enjoyed: the intro to the floating Hallelujah mountain; the giant carnivore scene; the flying touch-me-nots.

Alternate Ending: I didn't like Trudy's death; I'd want her to be taking back the banished humans back to Earth. I'd also want GiovanniRibisi to get punched in the face by the Dr/Scientist. Yeah... there's not much that can be changed in this straight-forward naration.

First Viewed: with Friends & Colleagues at a cinema theatre in Doha.

Quoting RGV - "One can argue that one has seen better films than Avatar; but nobody can dispute that one has seen a film like Avatar."
Rating-3.