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Well, I’m pleased to report that I liked this film far more than I expected to. I didn’t rave about it afterwards like the people I went with, or the group of friends we bumped into coming out of the previous screening, but I was entertained for the full, lengthy running time, and though I don’t think I’d watch it again soon, I would in a year or so.

Certainly, it exceeded my expectations. Was it utterly plotless? Well, no. Was it extremely formulaic and, as South Park suggested, totally derivative of Dances with Wolves? Yes, and Fern Gulley already ripped it off in a fantasy setting, but I have to say that the angle of existing in two bodies at once, two different, conflicting worlds, gave it an extra angle interesting enough to carry the unoriginality. Was the CGI really not the great leap forward claimed, ending up looking, unfortunately for what may be the world’s most expensive film to date, like a very long game cutscene? Well, yes and no. There’s no way this will still look good in twenty years. It’s very much of its time, and while CGI gets better and better, it’s still a long way from perfect. On the other hand, it’s good enough that after a little while immersed in the world, it’s believable to the point of not being noticeable, and many of the fantastical locations are extremely beautiful. It’s at the very least a visual treat, and the 3D worked well, adding just enough to be helpful, while being non-essential. That said, the technology still isn’t perfect, glasses darkening the screen a lot and catching bright lights, refracting them too much and causing glare.

So yes, this is a very beautiful film, with a tried-and-tested plot, and also safe, functional characters and great action scenes. I had very few problems with the plot, and the main issue I had, the fact that with the element of surprise the main character could clearly have just flown onto the main ships and used his grenades in the engines first, was a problem only with the realization of the scene, as the script itself covered the point with a line about ‘unching a hole’ that just didn’t seem necessary on-screen. I could forgive the fact that most of it hinged on little jellyfish-seeds being in the right place at the right time, because we had to believe in mysterious powers for the narrative to cohere. It had enough action, pace and sympathetic characters to sustain itself for its running time, and worked just fine as a blockbuster.

What did make me uncomfortable with it, on the other hand, was the spectre of racial tensions and issues that hung over it all. In many ways, it was White Liberal Guilt: the Movie. Oh, we feel terrible about conquering and destroying other cultures. Oh, we feel bad about our society’s loss of spirituality. Oh, we must condemn the greed of Western consumerism. And so here we will put in a ‘Mighty Whitey’ character that ticks all the TV Tropes boxes, rely on hokey power-of-the-planet contrivances and generally let everything turn out nicely for a great leader who would more likely be killed by many, many angry people blaming him for the loss of loved ones.

Apparently sequels are in the works. It will be interesting to see how the story develops, because all I can really see happening is the greedy super-rich who want the MacGuffin nuking the whole place.