A Big CGI Bauble

Rating: 7/10 (4 June 2010)

I suppose when you're trying to produce a film that pushes the boundaries of what is possible and believable in CGI, and probably spend most of your time defending a mind- boggling production budget, it's almost inevitable that you're going to take your eye off the ball on one or more aspects of the project. Sadly, this happens on the story and characterisation of Avatar, with the former well described elsewhere as generic and clichéd, and the latter as paper-thin.
Visually, Avatar is without question beautifully realised, and absolutely jaw-dropping in plenty of places, but the thudding predictability of the plot combined with hokey faux mysticism and cartoon personalities often leave your mind wandering, which is never a good sign. In many ways, the film's almost undone by the realism of the CGI, since the verity of the graphics don't distract and it only serves to throw the falsity of these other aspects into such sharp relief. The dialogue also, sadly, deserves a mention in that it could have been written by a 12 year old; even the line 'Sir, I have a situation here!' makes it through the script edit. Lazy hardly begins to describe it.
For all the (deserved) brouhaha surrounding Avatar, it really is pretty thin gruel indeed when compared with the efforts of Pixar, where the graphics are simply the vehicle for genuinely moving, inventive and witty storytelling.
Worth seeing, but ultimately unsatisfying.