The "king of the world" has no clothes

Rating: 1/10 (4 February 2010)

I'm going to predict, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here, that "Avatar" will win in most of the categories for which it has been nominated.
The supreme irony is that this film is, at its core, an exercise in gross hypocrisy. Anti-military, it revels in its depiction of violence as a means of resolving conflict; anti-corporate, its director is as venal and egotistical as any of the worst of the Wall St. CEOs; and anti-technology, it relies on its technological achievements to the detriment of essential film aesthetics like clever dialog, compelling plotting, and three-dimensional character development.
I wasn't even all that impressed with the technical aspects. (I saw it in IMAX 3-D.) The visuals weren't all that different, or that much of an improvement, from some of the great PC and console games I've played in the past.
Juvenile and derivative, this movie may arguably be a great leap forward in film technology, but it's a huge step backward for the concept of "film as art." Morally and aesthetically bankrupt, the film moves from one predictable plot point to the next, presenting elaborate and overblown set pieces that are unintentionally risible. When the movie reached its climax, depicting its alien race chanting and dancing in front of a sacred tree, I couldn't help but recall a similar masterpiece, "Queen of Outer Space." At least that movie had the benefit of a high-camp performance by Zsa Zsa Gabor. The only camp this movie can lay claim to is "sleep-away."
Craptacular to the extreme.