Avatar (2009) 8/10

Starring : Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver
Director : James Cameron
Running Time : 156 mins

Paraplegic Jake Sully (Worthington) is employed to go on a unique mission : his conscience is imbued into an artificial alien body created to look like an alien species known as the Na’vi so that the military can gather intelligence on them. Once he has infiltrated their tribe he discovers the real motives behind the interest in their home planet Pandora is a rare element know as Unobtainium which the military wish to mine, but will need to wipe out the Na’vi people. And as Jake finds himself falling in love with Naytiri (Saldana), one of the aliens, he decides to help fight for the survival of her people.

Although impressive looking, this movie is basically a billion dollar reworking of Dances With Wolves. Fair enough, there aren’t many original movies around nowadays so I can let that slide, but it’s hard to actually concentrate on the plot of this movie because of the dazzling effects. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was good, but it would have been nice if the effects didn’t get in the way of the story so much.

You’ll like this if you liked : Aliens