Review of Avatar (2009) by Phillip D — 12 Dec 2016

Gifted by one of the greatest special effects productions of all time, Avatar still fails to give Cameron another science fiction all time great. Shockingly, the reason doesn't stem from the spotty storyline and poor dialogue but rather from Cameron's own hypocrisy.

Blessed with a recent penchant for political activism, Cameron attempts to follow the line of many Hollywood big shots and create a 300 million dollar political statement. Unfortunately for us, Cameron fails in a ridiculously predictable manner as his own political views prove to be poorly researched farce at best and a shameless money grab at worst.

Cameron creates a movie about peace and harmony, even as he spews violence and futuristic weapons in order to produce many of the revolutionary shots that caused people to spend their money on the movie in the first place.

Cameron creates a storyline about Native American destruction, all while promoting the fact that a white man is needed to save the day. Cameron creates a film about protecting culture and identity, even as the main hero strips himself of his identity and disguises himself, essentially in blackface, a look he then adopts at the end of the movie.

Cameron creates a film to fight against injustice against native minorities all while returning all the stereotypes that were used for so long to degrade those same native peoples. In the end, it isn't the Michael Bay style empty violence, the massive plot holes, the poor exposition, the multitude of shameless science fiction rip offs or the bad writing that take Avatar from a top level epic and place it on the bottom shelf for shiny but ultimately boring things.

What does Avatar in is its blatant, poorly disguised, artless political message draped in its own hypocrisy. It is proof once again that mainstream Hollywood is generally incapable of producing social commentary films that rail against the injustices that Hollywood execs have taken part in and continue to take part in every day.

It is proof that while Cameron is a visionary director who had directed some of the greatest films of all time, he is an absolutely piss poor source for social and political commentary. It is proof that spending all the money, effort and time to build a movie with quantity still does not guarantee you quality.

And that is a lesson that any Native American could have taught Cameron, had he taken the time to actually give a shit about what happened to them.