Disappointed

Rating: 1/10 (24 April 2010)

I went to see Avatar with my sister with low expectations. I mean how can it compare to Titanic? After many previews for awful movies I was already bored. I read about Sam Worthington in interviews(and I should mention I went to see clash of the titans because of him) and I thought he had great potential. He just needs to find a movie where he can actually act. I had seen Zoe in Crossroads with Britney Spears years ago and more recently in the amazing movie Star Trek (which i saw 3 times) and I thought that she was a pretty girl who could go far.
The movie started and I was ready to see amazing visual effects and an amazing story. I should say that I saw it in 2D in a crummy theatre. Early on I didn't feel anything for these so called mercenaries. In fact I hated them right away. Finally Jake turned into his avatar and explored Pandora with the rest of the team. They are attacked and separated by creepy weird earth animals that have something added to them to make them alien-like. He is then alone and being followed by the alien creature until Zoe's character comes and kills them for him. She is, as someone said like a monkey with a mental illness. she has no depth and is kinda weird for all the wrong reasons. He follows her home and I see the same story I saw in 1995 with Pocahontas. And I knew that they would fall in love. I didn't love Pocahontas, in fact, I disliked Disney for not telling the accurate story of her life so i knew from that moment on I wasn't going to enjoy the movie.
Nothing really happens. They have a little montage where he learning their ways and i look over at my sister and see she is sound asleep. i wished so badly that I could fall asleep, but I couldn't due to the uncomfortable seats.
I heard students at my school saying how many times and how amazed they were at Avatar's visuals, but if you're basing a movie on visuals I don't know what movies are coming to. I want everything in a movie and I tend to learn towards comedies and romances. Anyway the visuals weren't stunning. In fact, as someone who enjoys the colors black, blue and purple, I was constantly looking away because they were too bright and unrealistic. I know it's an alien planet,but still it didn't look realistic at all. THe score was beautiful as always, but it's the same thing we hear in almost all of James Cameron's movies. The scenes where they were flying were great, but they got boring very quickly. How long does it take to look at the same thing over and over again? I most say I am proud the Oscars didn't award Cameron with best director or Avatar with best movie because he didn't deserve it. The story was stolen from not only actual history (native Americans vs. whites), but also on many other movies that did it much better. They had depth to their characters and didn't need visual effects.
Many people are comparing Avatar to Star Wars and LOTR, but Avatar is not even in the same league as these two amazing series. Star Wars was able to make the weird and unusual characters normal and respected. And Lord of the Rings was a masterpiece and probably one of the best book adaptations ever. it had amazing scenery without using 60% CGI.
I went in to see James Cameron's latest masterpiece and I wished instead that they had put on Titanic. The true masterpiece. Titanic was an epic romance and although it focuses more on romance than the actual tragedy it was visually moving and emotionally moving. When Jack died I cried because I felt for him. We saw him grow and change when he met Rose. Sure Jake changes when he meets the girl, but they didn't have chemistry. Their love scene wasn't romantic it was awkward and hard to watch.
Overall people need to start rating a movie based on everything not just one part. I know the special effects were important, but if you took them away you would have the same stolen story that made me feel bad about what we did to the Native Americans. If Cameron had made the movie more about combining the visuals with an interesting plot he could have made an amazing movie. But Avatar will be known as the highest grossing movie of all time and I'm happy I saw it so now I know that I wasn't missing anything. I would watch any of the LOTR or Star Wars anyday.