This must be seen in 3D.
150 years in the future earth is fucked and humans are now capable of interstellar travel. The planet Pandora is home to the Navi and also a precious metal called (cringe) unobtanium. Humans have invaded and are mining it to use as fuel backed by military support. Scientists are conducting experiments using lab created human/navi hybrids as host bodies for their consciousness.
Using an avatar Jake Sully, a paraplegic, is the only human allowed to take the Navi inititaion to become part of the tribe. He does this initially to gain military intelligence as a reward for a costly leg opperation but later realises he doesn't want to return to his human body.
The story is ahem timley and James constantly reminds us of this by using terminology like shock and awe and pre emptive strike but it's clunky and comes across as terrorism for dummies. The characters are all stereotypes and only Sigourney is good enough to act her way out of it. Sam Worthington is extremely bland, his face is a blank (but 3 dimensional) slab, information that should've been conveyed by acting has to be communicated to the viewer by voiceover.
The Navi are a tribal stereotype and embarrassingly like Star Wars, all have non american accents when they speak, the only really interesting thing about them is they can plug into the trees and animals around them via white stamen like filaments hidden in their long plaits. When they speak in their native tounge it's subtitled in Papyrus font which pretty much says it all really.
Gripes aside this is an amazing spectacle. The forest is awesome and in 3D you feel like you're there among the irredescent plants and flowers and six limbed animals that live in it. Breathtaking. The forest is the star of this show and I could easily spend two and a half hours just roaming through the trees and taking in all the alien flora. I kept expecting the guardian of the forest to emerge from Princess Mononoke as it seems like this is somewhere he'd hang out.
I was reluctant about the move to total 3D for film remembering the 3D I've seen with spears jutting out at me and elephants trunks, but this is a whole other level - if they can work out how to watch them without wearing glasses then count me in.
I couldn't help thinking about Ender's Game while watching this. I'm not entirely sure why - maybe the guys at the start floating around in spaceships, maybe the Navi being able to communicate with the dead via trees reminding me of the piggies in speaker for the dead but I hope someone sees this and and realises it's time to make Ender into a movie in the meantime I'm satisfied knowing that 3D Battle Angel Alita is on the way.
YES - you have never seen anything like this.
