Beautiful to look at, nothing more

Rating: 2/10 (9 February 2010)

The hype machine has made Avatar a genuine movie event. In a technical and visual sense the hype is understandable – we have not seen anything like Avatar before. A film with photo-realistic 3D-environments created on a computer, but totally immersive. It is a great achievement, and it should be regarded as one.
But one should also look beneath the stunning visuals, because therein lies the real film with its real problems. The storyline and characters are unoriginal to say the least. Frankly, we have seen this story a thousand times before: consider "Dances with the Wolves", for example. The Na'vi are obvious Native Americans; the evil corporate types are Western settlers, cowboys coming to conquer and exploit their lands.
And of course we need the hero, who switches sides and fights for the natives against the evil corporation. There is the Gun-ho military type who "fights terror with terror". Oh, come on. Yes, James, we got your little reference to the American War on Terror.
Avatar is also too long, it's painfully too long. I don't understand why the filmmakers of today have such difficulty of ending their films. You could've easily chopped out 30 minutes of Avatar without it having any effect on the "story", or rather "the series of happenings".
So; beautiful 3D-visuals, nothing more. Oscar-worthy? Come on! It may be the biggest blockbuster of all time, but that does not make it Oscar-worthy. Oscar-worthy films have notable performances by the cast and strong, original writing; Avatar has neither. It is technological achievement, and should be noted as one, but it is not great film-making in the sense that should be awarded with Oscars. The two billion or so dollars it has made on the box office should be enough.