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Being a cynical skeptic, I wanted to dislike this movie. I wanted the story to be trivial, the action to be a yawn fest and the much-heralded effects to be very 00s. Most of that ended up being true but I still liked it.
Before I go on, I’ll give you the short version (it’s been awhile since my last movie post and I’d hate to bore you). This makes Star Wars look like the pathetic, stolen from a million clichés, hack job it really is… purely because it’s the same thing with cooler toys (and stronger processors).
The story (like the aforementioned, poorly directed sextilogy) is stolen from a million anti-genocide, anti-war melodramas. It’s not spectacular. There are a lot of inane moments but it’s laced with enough allusions to our current reality to give it relevance. (Read: war propaganda, dehumanizing slurs, breaking from the natural order, “shock and awe,” etc.)
I was impressed with the action, which doesn’t happen often. Here’s where (full-disclosure) I’ll admit I saw it in IMAX 3D. This gives me a skewed perspective but I stick by the statement.
The scenery is stunning, the graphics are mystifying and the sequences of action are enthralling. I started to ignore the glaring redundancies of the story and got into the damn thing. It’s immersing. The effects are that good.
Really, it’s about the message. For that, it blows FernGully out of the water. The beauty of it (and probably why it’s so damn long) is you can take any number of themes from it. It’s anti-war, pro-Gaia, anti-corporatist, anti-fossil fuel, pro-loincloth and many others, depending on your mood, tax bracket or hair style.
For me, it’s about regaining our link to the natural world. Most of you know I think the free market’s perpetual growth is a joke no one’s allowed to laugh at, politicians are only able to reenforce misconceptions, our food is just as fake as anything on Pandora and we’re too far from natural selection to advance our species any further so my interpretation is probably a given.
Throughout the film, in varying contexts, the phrase “I see you” is used. Ultimately, this a call to see the world around us, the one we’ve been actively ignoring for more than a century (or millenium, depending on how you enjoy repetitious history) in the name of a small minority’s progress and an even smaller one’s profit.
The movie’s about a culture that exists within the cycles of nature coming up against a culture oblivious to them. It’s a fantasy not only in cinematic style, but because the former holds their ground against the latter. A quote near the end, “the aliens go back to their dying world” is haunting.
Superficially, it’s a fun show. It follows a predictable but fun-for-all-ages arch, has some neon blue nipple for the teenage boys, action for the dads, a simplified love story for the girls and a hint of feminine empowerment for those a bit older.
It doesn’t deserve all the hype but I enjoyed it a ton. It’s not a great movie but it’s one of the best this from last year.