If it was full CGI, it would have been OK

Rating: 1/10 (29 January 2010)

I think most people here nailed it already- Avatar has an overdone/cliché story, terrible acting, etc., and seems to rely wholly on its visual merits.
The thing is, for me, the visuals weren't that great because I could never reach that state of disbelief thats so integral to a film. Instead, I was treated to the 'Roger Rabbit' effect of having live actors against cartoony, 3-D characters. RR could pull it off since the story directly involved a 2-D world coming together with a 3-D world...
...but in Avatar, we're led to try and believe that the live actors and CGI coexist in the same 'realm'. It just didn't work for me though. The story/acting was a huge weight around its ankle the whole time, and the visual failure just took it to the bottom of the ocean. The mixing of the graphics and actors just looked completely lame to me, like it was almost two different movies and genres.
If it was a full CGI movie like a Pixar film, it would have worked for me. Even with the hackneyed story, I could have accepted it as general fantasy flick and what not.
Personally, I feel mixing CGI with actors in (most) films is a little lame, because you always know its CGI. I think the folks who deem this movie a 'visual feast' probably haven't developed their sense of perception to any real degree.