I always try to avoid learning too much about a film before I see it. Reading other critics’ reviews is out — I’m the Movie Critic Next Door because I’m not a professional and I don’t know what I’m doing. Wait, that didn’t come out right. I mean I’m not supposed to sound like every other film critic out there… and, well, I’m pretty sure I’ve succeeded at that, for better or for worse. The point is, I try to go to the theatre knowing the bare minimum about the plot, and this time I tried especially hard because I kept hearing whispers about how not everyone thought this was a wonderful film. If there were people whispering that, though, they’re currently being drowned out by all the fans shrieking about the special effects.
They’re worth shrieking about, though. They’re amazing. Most of the time, you can’t tell where live action ends and whatever freakishly cool computer imaging they were using begins, and it’s stunning. Giant, blue-striped, vaguely cat-like humanoid aliens seem to live and breathe, surviving on a planet where basically everything has a burning desire to kill and eat something else. There’s a beastie that looks something like a cross between a panther and a catfish that could run you down and rip your head off without breaking a sweat — and it’s far from the toughest thing in that jungle.
But I’m getting ahead of the plot. Sam Worthington (Marcus Wright from the latest Terminator flick) plays Marine Jake Sully. Ex-Marine, technically, since a spinal cord injury has left him confined to a wheelchair. Through a strange twist of fate (aka a necessary plot point), he’s ended up on a planet called Pandora, clearly named for the fact that said planet contains every dangerous thing in the universe, like the legend of Pandora’s Box. But students of this legend will recall that in some versions of the tale, Pandora’s Box also contained Hope, to make up for the nasty things like War and Famine. Pandora also means all-gifted, though, and the movie won’t let you forget that part for a second.

This is the best picture I could find of all the glowing stuff, and it’s only about one-fifth as cool as seeing it on the big screen.

Pandora’s natives are at a level of technology where poisoned arrows are about the peak of military achievement. It’s an untamed, gorgeous planet, where nearly everything glows in the dark and if you don’t know when to stand still and when to run, you’ll quickly find yourself on the menu. But, beneath this lush, deadly surface lies treasure, and the Sky People (Earthlings) want it. The treasure is a mineral that sells for about twenty million dollars a kilo (which, even allowing for what inflation must have done by the year 2154, is pretty considerable). And it’s called unobtainium. You probably think I’m kidding, but that’s seriously the name of it. Poor Giovanni Ribisi (Public Enemies) has to say it twice with a straight face, and I don’t know how he managed.
Giovanni plays the desk jockey in charge of decimating the planet and turning its natural resources to his company’s advantage, a guy named Carter Burke. I mean, a guy named Parker Selfridge, who’s actually even worse than Carter Burke. Stephen Lang (also from Public Enemies) plays Colonel Miles Quaritch, who’s seriously scary. And scarry. He runs the security team on Pandora, made up mainly of ex-military like himself. He also, foolishly, tries to push around Sigourney Weaver, who plays Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist who’s in charge of the science team. Like Clint Eastwood, she’s not getting any less intimidating with the passage of time.
The Avatar program allows the scientists to “go native” in a big way. Because of this, they’ve learned a great deal about the indigenous population — except they still haven’t learned the one thing the military wing of the operation wants to know, namely, how to make them realize they’re being selfish by refusing to leave their ancestral land and the giant tree they live in so that the big ugly bulldozers can scoop up all that lovely unobtainium. I can’t even type that with a straight face.
Would you believe I still can’t decide how to rank this? Because I can’t. Ranting the special effects is easy: Five out of five, all the way. The acting gets a solid four and a half. But the plot… oh, the plot. It’s only there to hang the special effects on, because that’s totally all people care about these days, right? And I can’t, just can’t, bring myself to give that plot more than two out of five, even aside from the one nagging error I spotted. Maybe I’m just bitter. It started out great — I couldn’t wait to find out all about the planet’s mysteries. Then, when we started finding out, it became like those old vaudeville acts, where someone would hold up signs telling the audience when to cheer, when to boo, etc. That bothered me, frankly. At the risk of sounding hopelessly un-trendy and harsh, I would have much preferred to see realistic situations and characters on Pandora, to go with the realistic effects — characters with both good and evil in them — and make up my own mind about who I might want to cheer for… if anyone.
Oh, and I still need a ranking. *sigh* Five + four and a half + two/3 = 3.8333, which isn’t too far off, I guess. Even though it was way too long and by the end of the second hour I felt like the seat was carved from stone, you don’t get the full visual impact outside the theatre. So 3.8 out of five it is, and I’ll take the abuse from those who think I rated it too low, because I feel like I rated it too high. And I’ll even offer up a patent pending MCND Fun Fact — some of you may have seen a recent episode of Bones, where several characters were taking turns waiting in a huge line to get good seats for the premiere of Avatar. One of those characters, Colin Fisher, is played by Joel Moore, who plays science guy Norm Spellman in the film. Kudos to whoever came up with that idea.

I went into this movie knowing almost nothing about rugby. I left this movie still knowing almost nothing about rugby, but that’s okay, since several of the characters don’t know much about rugby, either. Apparently, the game requires dressing in a soccer uniform, going out onto a reasonable facsimile of a North American football field, and acting like you’re involved in a horrible, no holds barred brawl. There must be rules, because occasionally the referee calls a foul, but I’m still not sure how the referees could tell when a fight started. The fighting looked exactly like the playing. To paraphrase an old hockey joke, I went to the fights and a rugby match broke out.
But it’s also a movie about politics, and I know even less about them, though the movie does a good job setting the scene. In the early to mid-90’s, when this movie takes place, Nelson Mandela (here played by Morgan Freeman of The Bucket List, who does an excellent job of looking like the former president) was trying to unite South Africa after it had been torn apart by Apartheid. The Afrikaners, descendents of the northern Europeans who settled in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, call Mandela and his followers terrorists. The black Africans, only newly restored to citizenship in their own country, call the Afrikaners oppressors — and probably worse, though in the movie, they say it in something other than English, and no subtitles are provided, so I can’t be sure.
After 27 years in a tiny little cell with a blanket on the floor for a bed, Mandela is now elected president of a country that he freely admits is in a terrible state. Ostracized by other nations, with two-thirds of the population glaring angrily at the remaining third and possibly wishing they could still shoot at each other like in the good old days, Mandela has his work cut out for him. No one wants to forgive or forget, and when he urges people to do so, they usually look at him like they’re wondering exactly how the impeachment process works in South Africa.
Then he hits on an idea. It’s offbeat, risky, and makes his long-suffering personal assistant Brenda (Adjoa Andoh, who played Francine Jones, Martha Jones’ mother, in the new Doctor Who series) wish that sports had never been invented. Yes, he decides to use rubgy, of all things, to unite his shattered country. It still seems strange to me, to use a sport that advocates grievous bodily harm as a path towards peace, but then, I suppose in this case, it was advocating grievous bodliy harm against people from other countries, so maybe that’s okay, then. Sort of.

Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon discover they’ve worn the same outfit to the World Cup Match.

Anyway, reasoning that if he can make everyone cheer for the country’s rugby team, the Springboks (named after a type of South African antelope), then everyone will be much less likely to want to shoot each other. It does seem a little far-fetched, so I understand why Brenda gets so frustrated over her boss’ obsession with the team; but having been born and raised within twenty miles of Lambeau Field, the very heart of Green Bay Packers territory, I can see that Mandela has a valid point. You might not like the guy sitting next to you — you might never speak to this person in the normal course of events — but if you suddenly realize that this person next to you is also cheering himself hoarse over that great play, it’s really hard to dislike that person.
There are just a few little problems with this plan. First, the team isn’t very good. In fact, they’re actually kind of awful. Second, most blacks hate the sight of the (all-white, except for one guy) team, seeing them, their green and gold uniforms, and even their name as symbols of oppression.
Enter Matt Damon, of the The Bourne Ultimatum. (Finally, right?) He plays Francois Pinaar, captain of the team, and he seems to think the team has potential; they’re just not organized, angry, or maybe experienced enough. Or something. He tries to inspire them by making toasts and encouraging the throwing of beer cans, but something’s still not clicking.
Then he gets invited to tea with the president, who tells the hapless rugby player that he’d really like it if he and his team could go win the World Cup for South Africa, please, thanks. And that’s what the rest of the movie is about.
There’s the obligatory dramatic highlights of the World Cup games, of course, and by the end of the film, I was really, really tired of watching these men beat each other up. But then, I don’t like rugby. I don’t even like football much, and that’s practically sacreligious when you’re from where I’m from. Anyway, it really started dragging for me at the end, so be warned.
Basically, since any attempt to deal with the whole of the country at that time would take at least ten movies, Clint Eastwood (now apparently happy to direct instead of act for a while) wisely decides to focus on just the rugby aspect of the struggles so it isn’t too overwhelming. Even so, it’s 134 minutes long, so get a comfy seat. But it’s worth watching even if you’re not a rugby fan, and I’m not just saying that because Matt Damon’s in it. Promise.
Four idols for this one. It’s a little obvious sometimes, clearly working to make the audience weepy, and that didn’t quite feel right. And I’m pretty sure Kyle Eastwood wouldn’t be getting all these music jobs in Hollywood if his dad wasn’t hiring him — it’s okay music, but it should be fantastic. But otherwise it’s a good film. The minor characters all get their chance to shine — keep an eye on the president’s security detail, for instance, now suddenly an integrated security detail, and all the adjustments they have to make. And remember: the first rule of rubgy is to wait until the ref isn’t looking before you punch the other guy.

Shores of Avalon
Hypnothis
Harlequin
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kevin@incompetech.com

Alchemist’s Tower – Orchestral theme for something both dark and fun.
MTA – A rare aggressive mix from me.
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