Avatar

We have only a fortnight before 2009 comes to an end, and it took us all this time for a truly execrable movie, the worst of the year, to hit local screens. But "Avatar" opens today as the latest piece of too-long, too-dull, too-violent claptrap to come from the imagination of James Cameron, and it wins by a wide margin. I had given worst-movie honors (or whatever they're called) to "2012," another end-of-civilization fiasco, but "Avatar" takes the cake, including platter and knife.

At 2 hours and 42 minutes, it's also about an hour too long, but Cameron never has been known to rein in his ego. He obviously believes that every frame of film he shoots is its own little masterpiece.

The story?

A team of American metallurgists and miners, working for a huge corporation and with the Army, Air Force and Marines all providing security, is on the planet Pandora where a marvelous metal called unobtanium (the movie's funniest line) can be mined for some military purpose. The planet is home to fierce, strange-looking, violent beasts and birds, each an artist's dream and, more likely, adapted from sketches made in grade school. There also are human types, simple, two-legged, yellow-eyed, funny looking creatures who worship trees and plants. Obviously they are standing in the way of the militarists and businessmen who run the American government and should be exterminated. They're in the same class as the lilies of the field who toil not, nor do they spin.

Enter Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a Marine confined to a wheelchair filling in on the space voyage for his late twin brother. He's been promised new legs that work better as part of his pay. Because Pandora and Earth are not compatible, the Americans go into a box that looks like a coffin and after a few minutes, they pop up like pieces of toasted bread, ready to go into action and looking a lot like the Pandorans, a few of whom could be called Pandorables.

Of course Jake meets a female Pandorable, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who also happens to be the king's daughter and handy to have around when the natives get restless. And yes, Virginia, the natives and their animals get very restless as the military weenies, almost indestructible in their fancy garb, fly around in fancy helicopters under the leadership of Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the most militaristic military man since the days of Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) and his associates Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden), Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) and King Kong (Slim Pickens). Lang is a total and complete caricature, and there's little inkling that Cameron has a sense of humor. There are occasional moments, however of what Cameron sees as thigh-slapping levity. Sigourney Weaver provides some as a scientist, but she adds little to the story. More interesting is Michelle Rodriguez, a helicopter pilot who likes to crack wise.

Jake soon realizes that his fellow Marines are interested only in turning Pandora into killing fields, and he also discovers that he rather likes Neytiri and her mother as we build to the final battle when super-modern, futuristic tanks and planes are partially done in by bows and arrows, proving that the Pandorans are farther advanced, militarily, than the Sioux of Sitting Bull.

"Avatar" is a mindless hymn to death and violence, though Cameron cuts back a little when he shifts gears into 3-D that doesn't scare anyone and is mostly a waste of time and effort. It's a truly awful motion picture, but Cameron knows that one way to become a star director is to follow the motto that "nothing succeeds like excess."

Opening today at multiple theaters.

–Joe