Incredible visuals, surprisingly lame movie

Rating: 4/10 (31 December 2009)

Yes, the visuals in Avatar are awesome. I saw it in 3-D and agree that it looks amazing.
Unfortunately, it still isn't that great. In fact, it's the most over-hyped and overrated movie of the year. Anyone wanting more than special effects (intelligence? god forbid) is not going to have fun at this movie. I suspect that the more movies you've seen, the less Avatar will impress you. Of course, even the critics (inexplicably) think this is the greatest thing since canned spam, so perhaps I'm wrong.
The biggest problem with Avatar is that its story is mind-numbingly generic, mediocre, unoriginal, predictable pap. It's Ferngully with better special effects. There weren't any twists or surprises here to engage or interest me in the slightest, which made for a dull and sometimes extremely boring film. The film's fans claim that "every story has already been told" and therefore we shouldn't criticize it. But that's nonsense. If no new film ever had any suspense, people would quickly stop watching them.
And then there's the running time. At 80 minutes, Avatar might have been tolerable. At 162, it's an endurance test. Especially with the lame characters and recycled story.
Honestly, I don't think I could even sit through this bore a second time.