Giving schlock a bad name

Rating: 1/10 (20 January 2010)

To call Avatar schlock is to insult some of the worst movies made in recent years, of which August Rush, Flyboys, All About Steve and Star Wars Episodes I, II, III and VI flash to mind quickest, and most painfully.
James Cameron's preoccupation with size can be referenced in 1997's Titanic directly from the script as well as seen in the disproportionate bulk of the ship itself; no ship that big has been built even to this day, let alone in 1908. In Avatar however, where full force machismo penile virility thrusts itself into flamboyant color-soaked vaginal tranquility, size definitely does not matter. More is decidedly less when super-massive machines and weapons assault super-massive... trees? It is so.
Think Jurassic Park - or worse, Jurassic Park II or III - meets Alien II and III, meets Dances With Wolves, meets Transformers, meets Jarhead, meets Disney's Tarzan and Jane, meets Green Peace in purple humanoid Halloween costumes.
Avatar's plot has such a hurried pace, jumping from one main theme to the next that only when Jake Sully, the hero investigating a native tribe, logs his daily findings into a web cam does the audience have time to reflect or even semi-disengage. Being constantly shoved from behind by the director is somewhat alleviated, however, due to the story's juvenile predictability. This allows the audience to catch up.
And we see the dumbing-down of film continues, as no major plot element goes unspoken, and no subtlety is even attempted. This is cheaply accomplished by having Sully come to the planet Pandora, where this struggle for resources and land takes place, as a complete newbie to whom everything must be explained. The truth is, Cameron thinks the audience is mostly brainless and so he has to force-feed us the important parts we might otherwise miss, or cannot surmise.
Every character from top to bottom has essentially zero complexity, except for the most fleeting of moments when Parker Selfridge, the big bad corporation's head bad guy, appears to have second thoughts about displacing an entire race of beings. This would have been barely interesting to say the most, but it is quickly discarded in the mad rush to the copulation scene.
The acting in Avatar is so bad across the board that even Sigourney Weaver should be barred from film-making for at least 5 years.
The computerized graphics are stunningly beautiful and breathtaking, with panoramic vistas beyond compare. But this is to say a race horse pumped full of the most powerful steroids runs stunningly and breathtakingly fast. Has the horse any true speed? Can it claim any honor in its victories? Avatar has no redeeming quality other than picturesque cinematography. Well, cinematography might be too strong a word; technology might be better.
To sum it up, this is the worst film given the most praise I have ever seen; a super-massive disappointment.