The film follows a group of humans visiting Pandora by becoming 'avatars', however complications arise from their invasion.

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2016)

Despite the film's incredible statistics, it lacks a certain amount of depth to them. At moments that were perhaps intended to move the audience are portrayed weakly while characters with high potential are trivialised by a lack of screen time. As a result, one may question whether it's high budget was worth the outcome. Although the advanced special effects are undeniably admirable and are perhaps what Avatar owes a lot of its success to, the impact of the story upon audiences was minimal, which is where i feel the movie loses most of its magic. It primarily falls to disappointing character development and a predictable plot at the cost of unbelievable graphics, which is unfortunate as it does introduce important political criticisms by highlighting the flaws within American foreign policy.
Although this film has many credible elements including fantastic CGI and the creation of a seemingly new culture (the Na'vi language and hierarchy), it is let down by clichÃ©s and high predictability. For example, the rare material that they seek is named 'unobtainium', a ridiculously uninventive name. Moreover, every character seems to fall into very predictable categories: the cold businessman, the tough military leader, the devoted scientist. Similarly, the storyline and character development were easily foreseeable. Furthermore, the film mentions the network between the roots of the trees a number of times, and the danger that this might have upon the military who are attacking Pandora. However, this concept seems to be dropped and ignored, almost as if the director gave up on the idea. Cameron's inconsistency in the film is further evident by the way the Na'vi managed to speak half in perfect English and then seemed to forget it, why these creatures would have any interest in learning a human language is also debatable.
Unfortunately, I believe this film has phenomenal potential, if a more imaginiative storyline was introduced with more complex undertones, characters and inferences it would be treated with far more appreciation. Simply, it is a reasonably good film but fails to fill the shoes it was given.