The plot plays second to the visuals

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 2010)

In 2154, the RDA corporation is mining Pandora, a lush, Earth-like, moon of the planet Polyphemus, in the Alpha Centauri star system. Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) heads the mining operation, employing marines for security. The corporation intends to exploit Pandora's reserves of a valuable mineral called unobtanium. Pandora is inhabited by the Na'vi, a blue-skinned species of sapient humanoids with feline characteristics. Physically much stronger and taller than humans, the Na'vi live in harmony with Nature, worshiping a mother goddess called Eywa. Humans cannot survive exposure to Pandora's atmosphere for very long and must use gas masks. Attempting to improve relations with the natives and learn about Pandora's biology, scientists grow Na'vi bodies modified with human DNA, called avatars, that are controlled by genetically-matched, mentally-linked human operators. The film focuses on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine that despite having no training whatsoever, becomes an operator.
Avatar has been in development since 1994 and it's James Cameron's first film in over 10 years. With an estimated budget of $280,000,000, Avatar is one of the most expensive films ever made. Thankfully for Cameron, the film is already the second highest grossing film of all time by ranking in 1.14 billion at the global box office. Cameron's previous film, Titanic is still number one but not for much longer. So, is all the hype and buzz surrounding this film justified? Not really. Cameron is indeed no stranger to science fiction, having done the Terminator films but, here he really tried to push the envelope; was he successful? Kind of. Visually, there's no denying it, Avatar is impressive, and it's not so much that the film is in 3D (sometimes you don't even notice it is and this kind of technology has clearly a long way to go still) but more the fact that Cameron imagined a pretty cool world. Pandora has some beautiful landscapes (computer-generated obviously) and you can tell that a lot of work was invested in the visual aspect of the film. The avatars were also very well done and if you look closely, you'll see the resemblance to the actors.
Unfortunately, Avatar is very weak story-wise. The plot is a melange of age-old stories. It's very simplistic, childish even and has been done countless times: assimilation of an individual into a new culture, a cross-culture love story, heroic uprising against oppressors. The dialog is not that great either and on top of that there's a few plot holes and inconsistencies and the film is overlong. The monumental battle scenes and the grandiose music give an epic feeling to the film but the thin plot is impossible to overlook and really drags the film down. Sam Worthington was pretty good as Jake Sully and he has proved once again that he is leading man material. On the other hand, the praise Zoe Saldana has received for her performance is puzzling. The actress doesn't have any screen time. She only borrows her voice (and some of her movements were captured) to a character and I don't quite understand how that can be considered a great performance. Sigourney Weaver, the most experienced actress of the cast was actually disappointing.
Overall, Avatar is not a bad film, the problem is the plot plays second to the visuals. The film was extremely over-hyped and while it might be impressive on a technical level, it's not a great film by any means let alone a masterpiece or the next step in entertainment.
6/10