Cameron is back with a record budget, but his storytelling and dialog haven't improved.

Rating: 1/10 (12 December 2009)

Yes, I was able to see an advanced screening of James Cameron's long awaited science fiction film, Avatar.
So, what's good about it? The visuals are among the best ever seen, the planet Pandora truly comes alive, and the creatures, wildlife, etc. All look fabulous on the big screen.
What's bad about it? Cameron's trademark lame dialog is back, as well as his less than ordinary scriptwriting. The characters, with the exception of Signorey Weaver's scientist character, and Stephen Lang's Colonel Quarritch all feel wooden. The hero doesn't feel alive, he feels generic, and I felt the bad guys "humans" were cardboard caricatures. Not to mention the story is far from original. It's basically Dances With Wolves/ Pocahontas meets Aliens.
What's the story about?
(SPOILERS AHEAD!)
In the future, Marine soldier, Jake Sully, (Played by Austrailian Sam Worthtington) is a paralyzed veteran, whose twin scientist brother was killed. The Resources Development Association, a greedy energy corporation, similar to the one used in Cameron's Aliens film gives him an opportunity to take his brother's place in the Avatar program designed by the RDA to infiltrate the natives of Pandora called the Navi, who stand ten feet tall, have blueish skin and act like Native Americans, plus they speak English. (What a surprise!) The RDA have brought in a group of marines led by the evil Colonel Miles Quarrich, easily the most interesting character of the entire film, to make sure that the Navi are displaced from their home so that the RDA can extract a mineral called "Unobtainium", which is worth $20,000,000 an ounce, since the Earth is in an energy crisis.
The film has some of the greatest visuals ever recorded on film, but after a while your eyes can get a little exhausted from seeing every little detail in 3D. After Jake's introduction to the Navi by "driving" his Avatar body, the film slows down as Jake and his new found love, Neitri, played by Zoe Saldana, fall in love, and Jake discovers how the Navi tribe works. But, time is running short, Quaritch and the RDA want to displace the Navi, by force if necessary, to mine the unobtainium from the Navi grounds.
The ending involves marine equipment of every sort, gunships, robotic suits, etc, all while the Navi face them down with flying dragons, dinosaurs, bows, arrows, etc. It's one of the grandest visual effects scenes ever put on film.
All in all, how did I feel about this film? Well, it's certainly an improvement over Cameron's previous entry Titanic, but his clunky dialog, and shoddy storytelling are still present, and most of the characters really aren't fleshed out very well. Worthington's Sully doesn't really feel alive, Saldana's Neitri is basically Sully's Navi love interest with little to do. Giovani Ribisi's greedy corporate shrill, Parker Selfride, is a whiny irritant, and Michelle Rodriquez, plays a sympathetic marine pilot who does little in the film. Only Weaver's Dr. Grace Augustine and Stephen Lang's Quarritch stand out among the crowd. Where Cameron succeeds is in the technical aspects of the film, the visuals, by Peter Jackson's effects company WETA digital, are first rate. Also, most of the action feels unoriginal since we have seen a lot of this material in Cameron's far superior Aliens film. Plus, it never even comes close to reaching the heights of his best film, 1991's Terminator 2 Judgement Day. Plus as I said earlier the dialoge is borderline retarded, hearing lines out of Quaritch's mouth is so bad, I was hoping for some cotton balls for my ears every time I heard one of his annoying speeches. Not to mention the logical thing for the RDA to have done was to negotiate with the Navi for the unobtainium instead of taking it by force, but then again, Cameron doesn't want to use logic, he sees corporations as the ultimate evil. Very little gray in this film. The RDA is evil and the Navi are good, end of story.
Would I see this again? Maybe, maybe not, but the slower aspects of the film and some of the dialog are very irritating to listen to. My wife actually got a migraine headache from wearing those 3D glasses for over two and a half hours.
To sum it all up, the visuals shine, the story lags, and the dialog is awful.
Avatar is not bad, but not great either. I would say it's average.