Avatar: Just FernGully With a Bigger Budget

In all of the hype surrounding James Cameron's new blockbuster, Avatar, the film's plot has largely escaped scrutiny. I've read review after review raving about the Avatar's groundbreaking, breathtaking, 3D, digital effects. Yet, in many of these assessments serious criticism of the story itself was conspicuously absent.

As someone who prefers complex narratives with well-developed characters to watching a director show off his expensive new toys for nearly three hours, I find this oversight disturbing. Perhaps, we've been inundated with so many vapid, special effects films (Transformers, G.I. Joe and the new installments of the Star Wars franchise come to mind) that we don't even expect a movie to have a coherent plot anymore.

Earlier this week, I cited NY Times columnist David Brooks in a post on my political blog, Armchair Firebrand. Today, Brooks became the first critic I've read to focus his review of Avatar exclusively on its asinine plot. Comparing it with similar films such as Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas and The Last Samurai, Brooks identifies Avatar as the latest example of an insipid cultural trend he calls the "White Messiah" formula,

"It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace."

Brooks rightly identifies this dynamic as offensive to both whites and their "colonial victims." The former is demonized while the latter is caricatured, patronized and condescended to. However, the review's coup de grace comes when Brooks points out that, despite all of its preachy, anti-corporate rhetoric, Avatar boasts a lucrative, promotional tie-in with McDonald's, perhaps the most corporate of sponsors.

So, to George Lucas, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg (et al.), stop choosing style over substance! Go back to your roots and rediscover what got you here. After all, digital effects and massive budgets are no match for a good script at your side, kid.