The Most Unoriginal Film of the Decade

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2010)

At the risk of repeating what countless others have said, this movie is blatant plagiarism. If a film student submitted the Avatar screenplay to an instructor, he/she would have been given an F. Colleges expel students for less obvious ripoffs than this. If you've watched Pocahontas or Dances With Wolves, you know the drill. The only difference is the ending, which has the pretty blue humanoids escorting humans to their Earth-bound ships at gunpoint, which I freely admit is a rather neat sight since my ancestors were American Indian, Irish, and Scot. As a result, I am perhaps overly sensitive to the plight of a civilization driven from their homeland and/or oppressed by a conquering nation - er, planet.
However, originality is not James Cameron's strong suit, so my disappointment is directed more at WETA. Yes, my beloved WETA, who impressed me throughout the years but completely stole my heart after the masterful rendering of all things Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I had two reasons for seeing this film. One was a 13-year-old boy, the other was my anticipation over what wonders WETA would lay at my feet.
Now, had the budget not been nearly half a billion dollars, I'd have understood the cartoonish creations, but as it stands there's no good reason for the results. Viewers are praising this film as revolutionary. I call "horsesh!t". This was nowhere near the caliber of WETA's LOTR work, their King Kong work, or their X-Men work. In fact, it wasn't even up to snuff with their Narnia production. The quantity of work was greater, not the quality.
I've never reviewed a film in my life. I actually registered here for the sole purpose of expressing my resentment at having wasted $20 bucks and 3 hours on such nonsense. Booooooo.