Over-hyped run-of-the-mill SF film, nothing more

Rating: 7/10 (1 May 2010)

I thought the first hour of Avatar was stunning for its sheer imagery and the realisation of Pandora, the Roger Deanesque world Cameron has realised as the backdrop for his "Jungle Adventure" in space.
Then the lack of a plot, a decent actor in the lead role, a stereotypical bad guy, reduced the film to one dimension, rather than rendered it in three dimensions, as promised on my theatre ticket.
It's not that Avatar is a bad Science Fiction film, it just isn't a great one. Cameron has long been a highly overrated film-maker, but he does get bums on seats, like the equally over-rated Roland Emmerich. Neither of them make bad films; they just make derivative blockbusters with the emphasis on technology and big-screen effects, rather than portraying any human (or alien) subtlety. This isn't helped by having only one decent actor in the film (Sigourney Weaver, woefully underused), playing opposite Sam Worthington, who frankly makes Keanu Reeves look like Olivier.
Avatar is not a bad film, and yes, the technology may well be a Star Wars moment, but it's not a great film either, and certainly not as thought provoking as, say, Moon, an Inde film made on a comparative shoestring with few special effects but infinitely superior writing and characterisation.
Cameron talked recently of 'leaving money on the table' with regard to the film's additional releases and DVD issues. It was a telling remark that reflects his true gift as a first-rate money maker, and a second rate film-maker.
Postscript, 20th July 2012: I haven't, in essence, changed my mind about Cameron as a film-maker, but I did see Avatar again on television recently, a very different experience from the original IMAX screening, and I must confess the bioluminescence scenes and overall setting of Pandora is stunning. I just wish next time he makes a film of this magnitude, he'll spare a few of the billion dollars he spends on a decent script. And for God's sake don't dig Quaritch up; one dimenstional characters don't translate over to 3-D very well!