It’s been nearly six blimmin’ weeks since I last did a movie review!

I best squeeze Avatar in before the end of the year then, eh!

She might be blue, but she's not cold. Well, not that I could see.

It’s 2154 and on the distant, beautifully vibrant world of Pandora, a war is brewing between us greedy Humans and the native Na’vi.

Of course, we Humans are nature hating bad guys armed to the back teeth who are looking to pillage Pandora’s assets at any cost, and the Na’vi are a race of tall blue people who all listen to Enya and like to sing a bit of Kumbaya on a Tuesday afternoon after a long tree hugging session.

There’s still a faint hope of a diplomatic solution though. The Avatar program has created genetically engineered Human-Na’vi that can be controlled by a human who shares the Avatar’s mutated DNA (yeah, we’ll gloss over that bit). These Avatars can walk amongst the Na’vi with the hope of learning more about them and the World on which they live and possibly reaching an amicable deal between the two races.

When paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully is offered the opportunity of taking control of his dead brothers Avatar, he (metaphorically speaking) jumps at the chance. His mission: Befriend the Na’vi and become a trusted member of their society. Then get them to move house.

Sounds like a plan with no drawbacks doesn’t it…

Well you’d think, wouldn’t you. Unfortunately, there’s a particularly suspicious member of the Na’vi called Tsu’Tey (as in “…and Sweep”) looking to de-rail Jakes plan, there’s a love interest, a series of trials, and so on. Once the basic storyline is set up, it’s broadly quite predictable stuff.

Floating Mountains. Perdy. How do they work then?

The good news is that Avatar is pretty impressive to watch. Great use of 3D, doesn’t get boring and it is a reasonably satisfying film really – certainly above average anyway. Just don’t think too hard about it.

The not so good news is that the moral eco-message does tend to get rammed down your throat somewhat. Considering all their super-advanced technology, the mining company’s ‘army’ is also a bit dim. They could’ve quite easily sat the other side of the planet and just fired medium/long range missiles – job done, but that’d make quite a short film I suppose.

It’s also not difficult to see where James Cameron got his inspiration for Avatar either: Lemmings.

Consider this screen shot from Oh No! More Lemmings, for example:

Race of blue people (kinda) - Check. Miners - Check. Floating Mountains - Check. Big tree - Check.

Case closed there methinks.

Speaking of which, and I’m sorry if this is a teeny bit of a spoiler…

…but no matter what she’s in, Michelle Rodriguez’s character seems to die every time! Surely she must wonder why the last page of her script always says things like “…and then you get shot”, “…and then you get run over” or “…and then you end up wearing a helicopter”?

The moment Michelle popped up in Avatar, the very first thought that ran through my head was “so she’s going to die then”. It’s almost as if when James Cameron was playing Lemmings, he saw one of the suicidal little cuties and wondered who he’d get to play one of those. Rent-a-Lemming Michelle Rodriguez, of course. Either that or she’s just a nightmare to work with and directors want to make sure that she’s not in any possible sequel. Hey-ho. :-/

8/10.