Not bad, but should have been a lot better

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 2012)

I haven't seen many films in 3-D since it became newly fashionable. This was the first, and best.
The film's technical credentials are so awesome that I'll begin with them. Visually, the film is simply stunning (in 2-D and on Blu-Ray too). Our hero, Jake Sully, is linked to an avatar so that he can penetrate and explore pristine forest on the alien world of Pandora and persuade the native people to move, thus allowing mineral companies in to exploit the planet, some of which is, of course, sacred.
He ends up lost in the forest and it is from that moment that the film's stunning visuals really take hold. The light is haunting and the forest's animal and insect inhabitants look truly alive.
Accompanying the visuals is some of the loveliest film music I have heard in a long time – maybe since "Gladiator". It is haunting when it needs to be, uplifting when it needs to be, sad when it needs to be – at all times, adding to the magic of what we're seeing. I don't buy film music much these days, but this CD was playing in my car the same day I saw the film.
Unfortunately, the story has nothing much to recommend it. As I was watching it, I thought "'Dances With Wolves' in Outer Space", a description that seems to have occurred to others too. "Avatar" contains every cliché and ill-informed prejudice – primitives good, civilization bad – that Kevin Costner's earlier film contained and is just as crass in showing the effect they have on each other. To that extent, it might as well have been made in monochrome. A correspondingly average script doesn't give the actors much to work with and their performances are no better than satisfactory.
But it's worth seeing AND hearing all the same. Think I'll watch it again this weekend
Rating: 7/10.