A potential great movie turned disastrous

Rating: 2/10 (3 July 2010)

It would be lovely to be able enjoy a good movie from a used-to-be good director, but this is not the case. "Avatar" can only offer you somewhat interesting CGI, but no story, no characters and no way to relate to this overpriced cartoon in any way. On the positive side, I found Zoe Saldana as Neytiri to be kind of cute. What I specifically disliked: 1) There are ridiculous entities in "Avatar" that sound just stupid and come with no explanation, such as the name of this moon, which is 'Pandora'. Is it an indigenous name or a nickname? What's this 'Unobtanium' mineral and what does it do aside from just being potentially shiny? Are those unexplainable floating mountains made of 'Unobtanium'? In science, this term is used for describing a non-existing material with impossible qualities. 2) I do not even have to mention that "Avatar" feels like a bad mix of 'Star Wars', 'Dances with Wolves', 'Matrix', 'Pocahontas' and a half a dozen of other rather famous films and even video games. A number of concepts were so obviously recycled from "Aliens" that it was sickening to watch. There are no original ideas in "Avatar". 3) Why are those blue aliens act so much like people from African tribes? Them aliens should not have been from Africa, right? What is all this African and Middle Eastern music for? 4) What is the story with the animals? Why do they mostly look and act like the Earth animals. I can mention the Pandorian animal species that look to me so much like rhinos, horses, wolves, and even the ancient flying dinosaurs - the pterodactyls. Those natives just keep riding them extra-multi legged horses in a usual Earth-like way! Looks like the moon of Pandora was borrowing lots of animals from Earth. Whoever might have been doing this? 5) How come that the blue Pandorian aliens use all the familiar primitive Earth weapons? I am talking about bows and arrows, bolos and such. 6) What is the story with the English language? Its comprehension among the characters goes on and off all the time. First they do not speak any English, then they speak some broken English, then no one speaks English again and then, after months of studying the native language, the main character fellow all of a sudden needs an interpreter to speak to the crowd of locals. So, he seems to have forgotten the Pandorian language and the locals forgot every bit of English all of a sudden. 7) How come that the arrows that the natives shoot are harmless to the aircraft at first and then then work as effectively as armor-piercing munitions with depleted Uranium cores? 8) Why the whole movie has no background story? This makes all the characters even more flat and lifeless. Also, one can get sick of all this liberal anti-American and racist ideology that "Avatar" builds upon. Couldn't they play some other cards that are not so obvious and overused? Anyway, it is a great shame that this potentially tremendous movie turned out even worse than 'Terminator 2'. I do not regret watching "Avatar", though. Now, I know exactly what kind of mental abilities to expect from people who rave about it.