It didn't suck!

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2009)

I was one of the people who thought this movie was gonna be a total failure, yet after seeing the good reviews it's been getting I went and saw it.
and it didn't suck. It was quite good actually. Is it the best movie I've seen this year? no. DO I think its the best movie to come out this year? no. It was good but it wasn't the best thing ever.
Cameron made a big gamble with this one.. this movie was 99% CGI and relied on that to make the movie. That's the way most big Hollywood movies are today, yet most of them end up being nothing but a visual funfest, but crappy in every other sense, like Transformers 2 and 2012...
HOWEVER, Avatar managed to succeed..its visual appearance and CGI glory is what makes this film what it is, yet Cameron did a good job writing the screenplay for it..and I dunno who he hired for his visual development team, but they are good, all the concept artists who came up with the look of everything..don't give Cameron all the credit! there's no way he came up with everything!! but yes, like everyone else is saying, the movie is visually stunning that totally draws you in...lots of pretty colorful stuff...if you are really into the fantasy genre..and like looking at nature, this movie is for you...those expecting to see a lot of fighting, high-action..well...it has that, but the real action, epic battles between machine and nature dosen't happen until the end...this movie could bore people after a while. So yeah, it all looks very pretty, the attention to detail, the designs of the environment and the critters living in it is very appealing...
As for the rest of the movie..it is easy to be drawn in by this visual spectacular and not notice its faults....for the main storyline/plot..nothing new is brought to the table, we've seen this kind story a hundred times..everything that happens is totally predictable, right to the very end....the characters are pretty stereotyped, especially the main bad guy..he is so cartoonish and cliché it is almost laughable..and none of the actors really did Oscar-worthy appearances or anything, but nobody was lousy either..and the romance..cliché'd too, yet once it happens, it dosen't take over the entire story completely, there is more drama and angst between the couple instead of mushy lovey-dovey stuff....
Also, once other critique I had, that may not bother others, is some scenes are super short, and cut off abruptly leaving you like "whu? that's it?" some scenes could have used a little more time..and as far as character development and all that..yeah..there is a sufficient amount I guess I would say...
Then there is the environmental message this movie tries to give, I mean, its pretty damn obvious,the whole "nature good, humans-bad"...it could have been a lot stronger if Cameron wanted...there aren't scenes where one of the characters goes on a rant about how bad humans are, destroying pretty nature..visually its there, and when you see it you'll know what I mean, it gets pretty emotional at one point. I got sad. Like I said, Cameron could have pushed it a lot more if he wanted to..but I think enough is there for people not to think "this ain't nothing but a movie for tree-huggin' hippes yadda yadda ya" Personally, if this movie brings in enough cash, I think Cameron should donate some of it to nature/wildlife organizations..but since this movie cost him so much to make he's prolly gonna keep it all to himself. But for the environmental crisis we are going through right now, maybe this movie will open people's eyes a bit...
overall, this film is pretty good, not completely flawless or perfect, I think people are giving it too much credit...
so yeah, go be entertained, its a lot of fun to watch...I didn't fork over the extra money to see it in 3D..but I guess if you have extra money to spare see it in 3D and I'm sure it would be real fun to see on IMAX too.