Mediocre cr-pfest

Rating: 1/10 (26 December 2009)

I actually enjoyed this quite a bit, but I am giving it a 1, because I cannot believe that it deserves an 8.8, which is what it is getting this evening, mostly apparently due to suspicious ratings from countries like Slovakia, India and Australia. Not that I have anything against those countries, it just strikes me as odd that so few good reviews are coming from the United States. I'm not saying that IMDb's ratings are being manipulated by some sort of conspiracy, I am just saying it is odd. Anyways, rather than try and balance my review with what was good (the visuals, the 3D, the sound effects), am just going to say what really sucked. Can I say "sucked" in my review? Guess I will find out.
1. "Unobtainium." Really, "unobtainium?" Was this a kid's cartoon? 2. Sigourney Weaver's confused and cartoonish scientist character. She's tough, she smokes, she has a heart of gold, and her Avatar dresses like Dora the Explorer. Also, why try and make her look twenty years younger than she is? I can't tell if they used CGI, Botox, or a ton of make-up, but she looked like the female version of the Picture of Dorian Gray. What a waste of talent.
3. Hundres of years in the future, they can create magical avatar clones and transmit brain signals to them, but they still use flimsy wheelchair thingies? 4. Less than a half dozen animals on Pandora, and all but the floating jellyfish are angry and violent. Really? No fish? No birdies? No toads, snails, foxes, puppy dogs, kitty cats, mosquitoes, or anything but those half dozen CGI creature types? Seems like Pandora was populated by a relatively cheap CGI outfit.
5. The trees all communicate through synapses, and this is supposed to be ominous, yet this never turns into anything compelling. Did Jimmy Cameron get tired of his own idea? Or was it to hrd to animate something more interesting? 6. Almost half a billion dollars to make this?!?!?!?!? 7. "Unobtainium?" "Unobtainium?????" 8. Cartoony tough military guy who does not have a clue how to organize a military campaign.
9. The Na'Vi speak broken English that somehow becomes perfect English on and off throughout the movie. And the Avatars speak perfect English in normal tone of voice, identical to their human voices, although their bone structure is completely non-human?!?!?!? 10. Unobtainium I could go on and on, but you get the picture. This was like an extremely expensive and pretty kiddie cartoon. What a waste, and absolutely NOT deserving of the rating it is getting here.