After all, the director was praised for his three dimensional (or at least positively constructed) female characters well before his work in 3D technology. The women are kind of problematic as well, which is where the James Cameron influence seems to falter. The Papuan character who actually gets lines has to speak in his native language with subtitles of course he only has one or two things to say before he falls head first onto the bedrock of a cave and gets a prompt mercy killing. The storm picks up and we see the medicine man, covered in the hallmarks of the idealized “noble savage,” and of course he doesn’t speak. This bad weather, moreover, is presented at the beginning of the film alongside stereotypical images of Papua New Guinea and intellectually negated native populations in general. Yet here, instead of the fetishized-though-dynamic native Na’Vi leading the fight against the dark side of humanity, it’s a monsoon. The exploitation of a luscious 3D-enriched natural landscape, only to be foiled by an infuriated Mother Nature is at the precipice of becoming a James Cameron trope. Our American businessman-hero, Carl Hurley, is here to take advantage of this extraordinary cave system for financial gain.
Like “Avatar”, perhaps the most blatant thematic point of the first 20 minutes seems to be that you really just shouldn’t mess with nature.
But as the film launches, there’s a bit of Cameron-esque idealism that comes through almost before the showy visuals become noticeable. The obvious starting point is, of course, the use of 3D. Playing “spot the Cameron” is a fun way to pass the time during a screening of this perhaps otherwise uninteresting undersea spelunk.
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