Pretty Visual Effects Are Not Enough

Rating: 2/10 (21 December 2009)

I'm giving this movie a 2/10 because undeniably the art and beauty that is the setting of Avatar is outstanding. It's a gorgeous movie but I find it offensive as a movie-goer that we should be expected just to like a movie because the hype and a gorgeous setting.
This movie severely lacked plot and character development, especially the latter. The main character had some depth but the supporting cast had very little, and I did not feel at all attached to their causes or goals. The movie was far too long to cover as little as it did, there was more to uncover about the characters, their past, and how they interacted with one another but it was shown through quickly progressing scenes, with little dialogue relying on the score and beauty of the setting to speed us through the time of the movie. Months were shown over the matter of minutes, which would be okay if they had some fully formed characters I could believe in, but that was not the case here.
As mentioned in other reviews, the plot originality is severely lacking, I found myself during nearly the entire movie thinking.."oh this is just like that movie" or "that is just like this movie". That's not to say that similar themes are recycled in many modern movies, but this one wasn't even cobbled together convincingly to be its own story, you can see the loose threads of other movies everywhere, only turned into a Avatar themed world. Clichés abound here.
This movie is getting way more positive reviews than it deserves probably because of the expert animation/visual effects and the huge hype before hand. It's disappointed to see such a sub-par movie getting such a fabulous reaction from movie-goers, we deserve better. Hype+Stunning Visual Effects does not equal great cinema.