Commentary, a conservative high brow magazine of politics and the arts, did a piece on Avatar. Not remarkable, it's only the top grossing movie of all time and thus worthy of a writeup. Stephen Hunter does the review and gets sucked into a search for the deep inner meaning of the flick. Trouble is, there is no deep inner meaning. The plot is shallow, as shallow as a Western or a Bond movie. Focusing on the light weight plot doesn't do much for his readers, most of whom have seen the movie by now. We know the plot was so light weight as to float. We enjoyed the scenery, the fighting, the flying, and exploring the lush jungle of Pandora.
A more perceptive review would have explored just what made this movie the all time best seller/top grosser despite the light weight plot, cardboard characters, and good guy bad guy role reversal.
Especially as Avatar is a "see once" movie, unlike Star Wars which racked up money from awe struck fans seeing it two, three, and four times.
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