If only the script could have been better?

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2010)

The "King of the World" James Cameron is back with his most ambitious project yet, a project that took over ten years to make and cost $300 million. This time he has set about creating the most realistic environment generated on computer that has ever been seen on film and has done a fine job of it as well.
The movie begins with paralysed marine Jake Sully replacing his dead brother in a project to win the trust of the Na'vi, the native inhabitants of the moon Pandora who are at war with the human colony searching for "unobtainium" the mineral to bring life to a dying Earth. To do this they set about creating vessels called Avatars for the minds of the scientists and marines to inhabit allowing them to communicate with the Na'vi more easily.
The characters are perfectly acted with Stephen Lang as the war mongering Colonel Quaritch and Sigourney Weaver as chief scientist Grace Augustine the stars in Pandora's sky but leads Sam Worthington (Sully) and Zoe Saldana as the princess of the Na'vi, Neytiri give good performances as well.
With the team that brought Lord of the Rings to life behind him, Cameron has blown all other special effects out of orbit with this stunning masterpiece of visual stimulation. Through the beautiful scenery, the native creatures and the Na'vi themselves, you are encased in a world where every bit of detail has been accounted for and the results are stunning as a result.
Yet for all the imagery and detail the effects team has come up with, it can't hind the problems with the script which is as cliché ridden as a Leona Lewis ballad – which is presumably why she's on the soundtrack.
The stone cold marine falling in love with nature, the budding romance that forms between Jake and Neytiri, the sneaky corporate executive and nature vs mankind plot lines all could have been lifted from a Hollywood handbook called "basic plots" and this results in the inevitable glances at the watch as the legs and behinds begin to beg for the slightly long winded film to finish.
Avatar has raised the bar for all other action films in terms of imagery and special effects but it has not mastered the ability to tug at the heartstrings of the audience which other epics have done better in the past.