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A group of English settlers land in Virginia, some to make a new home, others to look for gold. The most adventurous of them, John Smith goes exploring one day and is captured by Indians. He’s sentenced to be killed for being a white demon. But just before the execution the princess asks that he be spared and made her servant because, she has a crush on him. She keeps him for a month before returning him to the settlement. That winter because so many spent all of their time searching for gold the settlement has no food and out of kindness, the natives bring them food.

That was the story of Pocahontas and to all of those that claim this is the same story I ask, “Which story did you learn?” The main reason is the obvious Indian parallel in this movie and people think “Indian love story... yeah Pocahontas.” The real similar story in this instance is Last Samurai, which you should see. Heck, Romeo and Juliet is way closer than Pocahontas.

Now that that’s off my chest, here’s Avatar’s plot. If you’ve seen Last Samurai, you can skip this part. A future earth company has set up a mining colony on a newly discovered planet, Pandora, searching for a mineral that’s very rare on earth but in abundance there. The biggest problem is that there’s a group of humanoids, the Na’Vi, living there. Not only that, but their village is sitting on the largest mineral deposit on the planet and they don’t want to leave. To this end the company has developed a method of growing avatars that resemble the natives, that they can control by mixing in human dna when constructing it. One of their avatar drivers dies in an accident and in an attempt to not waste the incredible amount of money spent on the avatar they hire his marine twin brother to take his place because they share the same dna. He’s sent on a diplomatic mission to gain the native’s trust and after getting to know them and their ways, begins to think he may be on the wrong side.

I was excited about this movie for three years. I love James Cameron. I’ve seen all but two of his movies, Titanic and Piranha 2. Titanic for a lame, personal reason and Piranha 2 because it’s considered one of the worst movies ever made. But he has a standard of excellence in all of his movies except Piranha 2 and it’s his first one in twelve years. One thing that’s fun about this movie is that it makes earthlings the invaders on an alien planet. We’re used to it being the other way around and I’m not saying it’s refreshing, it’s just worth noting. The plot is simple, the dialogue frequently uninteresting but the acting is up to the usual standard expected from a James Cameron movie. Now let’s get to the real reason that people are flocking to this movie: the visual effects are amazing. Absolutely amazing. Were it not for the fact that so much is outside the realm of physical possibility, you would not be able to tell what’s real and what isn’t. The visuals are absolutely breathtaking.

The negative. Apart from the amazing visuals this movie really has nothing strongly going for it. It’s a movie based solely on spectacle. It’s trying to make a statement that’s so blunt that you can feel it smacking you upside the head. The story is too well known. We’ve seen it a so many times and this brings nothing new other than large blue people.

This movie is a joy to watch and if you can find it in a dollar theater or something, go see it because it can only be truly appreciated on a large screen. I’m sure it’ll be fun on the smaller screen but not as much. If you get a new blu ray player and a huge TV and you want to test it, get this movie. B+ for quality but I don’t plan to buy it.