these people have no brains....

Rating: 2/10 (14 April 2010)

Seriously, people, admit it. You were captured by the film's amazing special effects, not the movie itself!! Avatar was NOT groundbreaking, it WASN'T amazing, and it definitely did NOT deserve eight out of ten stars.
I'll start with the one and only good thing about Avatar. I'll admit, the special effects were very realistic, and I hate to say it, beautiful. That does NOT mean that it is a good movie. And here are the reasons why:
1) The story- I have seen the Disney movie, Pocahontas, a couple of times and I absolutely love it. When I saw Avatar, all I saw was the same exact thing, minus the songs and plus the blue aliens. Seriously! The main character goes to an alien planet, just as John Smith went to the New World. He is at first, is like the other military people: brainless, trigger-happy, and no respect for nature and people that are different from them, just as John Smith, along with the other Jamestown settlers, enjoy the talk of shooting Indians (gasp) I mean, Native Americans. He falls in love with the daughter of the blue alien tribe, just as John Smith falls in love with the daughter of the Native American tribe. So, John Smith, I mean, the main character of Avatar, begins to fight for THEIR side, much to the military people's displeasure. Is anyone getting this? The story is an EXACT COPY of the story of Pocahontas, with a few minor (and I mean MINOR) tweaks. I was actually expecting the alien lady to start singing "Colors of the Wind". Obviously whoever had to write this story got extremely lazy, and decided to steal another movie's storyline, and change it a little, hoping it would cover up the whole thing, which didn't work.
2) The feeling of the movie- I cringed and winced and groaned in pain as this movie dragged ON and ON and ON and ON. I left the theater, tired, dizzy, and totally irritated that my poor dad spent good money on seeing this piece of trash. Anyway, this movie was not all uplifting. Every time there was an emotional (if I can even call it that) moment, I wanted to throw a rotten tomato at the screen. The acting was terrible. Want examples? Okay: The main character, with his inability to listen to people and his very flat personality. The blue alien lady he falls in love with, with her weird facial expressions, and her odd wailing when she was sad that made me cringe in disgust. Just about everyone else's performances were not memorable; it was like watching a bunch of wooden puppets walking across the screen. The pace of the movie was also terrible. It was FAR too long. Pocahontas told the story in an hour and a half. Avatar managed to drag the story out for almost THREE HOURS. Did they really think that we would sit through all that and not have any complaints?
3) The situations- One thing I have to say about this is that some of the scenes in this movie were questionable. Number one, when the main character and alien lady are kissing under the Spiritual Tree thing or whatever the heck it's called. It was really weird to me. For the first few seconds, it was like, "oh, okay. They're kissing. Whatever." And then they dive into a full- blown make-out session that looked so awkward, I actually laughed. Number Two (SPOILER), when the main character is dying because he doesn't have one of those oxygen mask things, and the alien lady comes in at the last minute and puts it on his face and saves him. For one, he then reaches his hand up to touch her face, and for another, since he's a human and she's an alien, she's so much bigger than him, and the whole situation looks really awkward. Another thing, I saw this in several moments in this movie. One dude in the beginning said that the planet's air could kill humans in four minutes or less. At one point in the movie, the main bad guy, an army general or something, doesn't have a mask on, and he's outside! He comes back indoors, like ten minutes later, shaken, but not in bad health. He was out in the open for ten minutes on that planet! He should have been dead! And speaking of which (SPOILER), in the "final confrontation" between the main character, his alien love, and the bad guy, the alien lady shoots the bad guy IN THE HEART. He stumbles around for five minutes, and keeps fighting! She shoots him AGAIN, in the same spot, and he chokes and gasps for five more minutes before he FINALLY drops dead. Um... I don't know if the rules of science and human anatomy have changed, but I have always been taught that if you are shot in the heart, you die in that instant. Obviously the people who made this movie forgot that widely-known rule. Absolutely ridiculous.
4) The characters- All I have to say is that the characters were shallow, stereotypical, and absolutely boring and depressing. I didn't feel anything for them, other than the despair that after two hours, the movie STILL WASN'T OVER.
Hopefully by now you get my point. Special effects are not the movie. It needs MORE: a good, original story, lovable characters, believable situations, and a moderate length that tells the story, and keeps the viewers thinking and entertained. No more of this Michael Bay Syndrome that EVERYONE seems to have today. People, start getting some idea of what entertainment is. Please stop giving these people money for their laziness.