More pop fantasy than sci-fi action thriller

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2009)

For a sci-fi thriller and special-effects buff that I am, this movie significantly lacked appeal.
The blending of live action and CG was far from perfect. It lacked the refinement that was exhibited, for example, in animating Gollum, who supposedly was one of the triggers for Cameron to start working on Avatar again. I don't know if it was intentional, but the obviously fake graphics didn't do very well to help the suspension of disbelief and added more confusion to the actual character (animation vs. live action) of the movie.
The shapes of the alien life-forms were done very well but the colours and textures were very childish, especially with all the glowing things everywhere. Human gadgetry was a mixed bag but the space shuttle that was transformed into a bomber was the most pathetic piece of flying machine design I've seen in a recent sci-fi movie.
The plot initially had the potential of being very complex and interesting but the screenplay makes it degenerate into a very simplistic fairy tale, the height of which was Jake's riding of the Toruk (the most fierce flying creature on Pandora). At least we deserved to see how Jake accomplished such a difficult task, in greater detail.
All in all, this movie had a wonderful fantasy environment that the viewer could enjoy for some time but fail to connect with thanks to a grave lack of effort in making the audience believe that Pandora could be real. The childish screenplay adds to further disconnect for adult viewers and, despite a good story, in the end it remains a popular fantasy geared more towards children.
I can easily think of a dozen movies released in the last 10 years that were way better than Avatar for sci-fi and special effects.