Good visual effects overshadowed by unoriginal artistry and ideas

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2010)

I don't claim to be a professional film critic, but I did want to through my two cents out about the new movie "Avatar," which everyone is raving about.
Yes, the special effects are amazing; yes, it costs lots of money to do. But when I watch a movie I like to see creative genius at work, and honestly I don't think Avatar really delivered in that department. People go on about how great a world "Pandora" is, except they overlook the fact that almost all the animals in it are loosely based off exaggerated versions of earth beasts. Even the na'vi people seem to be based on a sort of half-man, half-cat mentality. Throw the marines in and it seems to be nothing more than a movie based off of Halo.
The plot is predictable to the point of annoyance, the marine general goes down in a classic "Custer's last stand" sort of scenario. In fact the resemblance of the na'vi to native Americans (from their pantheistic spiritualism to their dress) is almost ridiculous. And at the end when the na'vi simply kick the humans out, there remains a glaring question: what happens when the humans strike back? It didn't seem to me that the humans had thrown all they had at the na'vi; the movie didn't resolve the conflict at all between the two races. Rather, I would expect the na'vi had awaken a sleeping giant with their courageous, however naive, stand against the technology and supposedly large population of the "sky people." I mean lets be real here.
Yes its a great movie from a cinematographic standpoint, but artistically speaking it pales in comparison to other great films. And of course it doesn't stimulate any serious thought beyond its simplistic environmental message. The only other redeeming feature I could think of was its appeal to a certain morality - the idea that the corrupt businessmen were evil, and that the "peopleness" of the na'vi was something that gave them a certain intrinsic value on equal footing with humans (although at the end it almost seemed like humans were the ones that had lost their humanity over the na'vi).
Maybe I've missed something big about this movie, but from my standpoint its like this: Good movie? Yes. Great movie? Maybe. Groundbreaking movie? Hardly.
Thanks for letting me give my two cents, have a nice day.