Entertaining film with good visuals, but apart from that, offers nothing new.

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2010)

Avatar - probably the most hyped film of last year mostly due to it's apparently ground-breaking visuals, but does it live up to it? Yes and no.
Acting: Worthington is a pretty bland lead - not terrible enough to be unbearable nor impressive enough to be memorable. He's simply passable. Saldana does go a bit OTT here and there in her reactions as Neytiri and puts on an exaggerated ethnic accent but she's better and more charismatic than her love interest.
The only stand outs are the morally confused Ribisi and Lang as 'the ultimate baddie bas-ass', Colonel, who plays his role with enthusiasm.
As aforementioned, the dialogue is cheesy and sometimes unintentionally hilarious with flat, archetypal characterisation.
Plot: What's to say? It's basically predictable from probably each scene to scene and the hackneyed storyline is hardly original. Even within the formula it could've been more inventive. It also lacks emotional investment in some places, concerning deaths.
There is some baggy scenes that could've been trimmed, probably, but time breezed by.
Cinematography/SFX: This is the crux of the matter of the film - what got bums on seats in the first place.
In 3D(which looks like a floating hologram in front of me), a lot of Pandora's visual wildlife and plants poke out of the screen at you. Interesting for a while, but the surreal novelty soon wears off, as it's more distracting than immersive. I mean 3D doesn't make Jake or Neytiri better characters or the plot any better because I can almost touch them, does it? 3D doesn't involve me more in a film, it just makes you aware of an aspect of the film that wasn't there before and has no relevance to plot or character etc.
The phosphorescent 'Billie Jean' night plant lights were silly, but I liked the animals and wildlife most. it looked pretty authentic for CGI, if still slightly manufactured looking.
Hated the Na'vi design - it's just risible. Part feline, part Abe Sapien and part anime, it just looks bizarre, aesthetically, from my point of view.
Score: Sounds like a slight remix of Titanic - pretty mediocre.
Overall: It is fun, but the stereotypes(the Na'vi are a mix of native Americans, African tribes and maybe Amazonian tribes for good measure) and silly ethnic accents with the heavy-handed environmental message is very clunky, and doesn't sit well with the flashy colourful, detailed visuals and weird character design, for me. This is a popcorn film, it doesn't need to take itself too seriously with messages, especially when you have a cartoony if photo-real ten foot blue alien as your main selling point. The romance was undeveloped and forced as well. Good, in terms of how Pandora looks but very flawed elsewhere. My guilty pleasure.