Groundbreaking but not great

Rating: 7/10 (5 January 2010)

Avatar kept me fascinated about halfway through the film. This because of the sheer amount of creativity in the visual effects (The whole film is more or less a 150 minute visual effect). For that, the team at WETA around Richard Taylor deserves every award that relates to art direction, visual effects one can throw at them. The flora and fauna on Pandora is extraordinarily well crafted and abundant of new and bizarre life forms. The virtual characters of the Na'Vi are so far the closest to believable "real" creatures, maybe with the exception of the great ape in "King Kong" which I personally find unmatched yet. It is thus the logical evolution of WETAs progress into the virtual realm which started in "The Lord of the Rings" where Gollum was the first step towards creating a believable virtual character. Yet the film still centered around human characters. In King Kong, the great ape already consumed 50% of the presence, and in "Avatar" the virtual characters do 70-80% of the acting (at least that's how it feels). In this respect, the film is really groundbreaking and the 3D enhances the feeling of realism in a great way. But the story of the film is too predictable and has been told a few times before. I immediately recognized "Dances with Wolves", "Lord of the Rings (no surprise), and "Final Fantasy". I think the story / idea of the film has a lot more potential than just laying the backdrop for a standard action film. It could touch other, deeper questions, e.g. how jack Scully handles the inner conflict of being human half of the time and a Na'Vi half of the other time. How is it to fall in love with an Alien? Even if he sees Pandore through the eyes of a Na'Vi, he still has a human mind, right? There are many psychological and philosophical aspects that this film could touch. But the way the story evolves and the predictability made the film feel too long by at least 30 minutes. Nevertheless, this film is a must see for all those who want to see a technical milestone in film-making and for those, who haven't seen yet too many films where tension is created by applying the usual count-down tricks ("30 seconds before detonation...").