All glitz, no glamour.

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2010)

When Avatar was first announced I admit I was just as excited as anyone could have been expected to be. After seeing it I was still jazzed, the visuals were fantastic and the movie left me feeling satisfied.
As the excitement faded, I was left wondering a lot about the movie, not the least of which was "Why was I so excited?" I'm not going to deny that Cameron created an incredible world, Floating mountains, huge beasts, and entire eco system self contained and beautiful. But then you start wondering. "Why is everything on the planet Bioluminescent?" "What do these things eat?" "How can entirely separate creatures share a mental link?"
Little things, but they star wearing away, so you watch the film again hoping to answer the questions. That's when you realize, aside from the beauty of the world, the absolutely amazing visuals, the film itself holds little substance. Obviously I could draw the Dances with wolves Parallels, or Furngully parallels, but in the end most movies borrow plots from either history, or other movies.
No what really got me about this movie was the fact that, there are characters, but no people. Sam Worthingtons character was our obvious hero, on obvious is the Key word. Worthingtons Character held no personality, he was what he needed to be, nothing more, at no point in the movie did I see conflict in him, there was never a moment where I believe he would NOT join the Na'vi because I had no reason to believe he wouldn't, he was promised legs if he helped the military, but he already had those by means of his avatar leaving him with absolutely no motivation for helping the so obviously evil military.
This enters the next issue, the Military. The movie has led us to believe that, since this is an alien world, the military as an institution does not exist, and that these are actually mercenaries acting under the guise of military personnel. With the exception of the fact that Worthington, and Colonel Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang are treated as actual Military personnel, meaning that they do answer to the government. The Allusion to the treatment of the Native American people is less than subtle, but I personally took offense in the portrayal of the military personnel as essentially nothing more than blood thirsty monsters out looking for a fight. Only one of them (Michelle Rodriguez) seems to object at all to their treatment of the natives, something I always felt was a bit strange, after all even the men who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima recoiled in horror at what they had just done.
Their motivation is Weaker than Worthingtons, they state they are interested in a new element, Called Unobtainium,I have heard many people criticize the name, but to be perfectly honest, I bought it, Scientists often name new elements goofy stuff, and if its one that only occurs on an alien world and is thus unobtainable, I could see them calling it that. The real question is "What does it do?" Why is it so valuable? Seemingly it's because it's so rare, and if thats the case, why mine so much of it? Saturating the market makes it worthless and I'm sure a business man such as Geovani Ribsi was playing would know. If it had some sort of conductive or power generating abilities, why not say it? We're told it's valuable, but never told why.
Over all the movie is an incredibly immersive experience, and a nice watch, but the revolution of story telling it is not. A good Story and Great acting can make a movie great without visual effects, not the other way around.
On a personal note, this is the film that sensationalized 3D movie making, which is a gimmick that died in the 70's and should have stayed dead. So i can't help but dislike the movie for bringing the idea of 3D movies back, since now so many other movies are attempting to cash in on the gimmick and ad 3D to their own films, it's distracting, it's annoying, and it's unnecessary.