eye candy with no substance

Rating: 6/10 (16 February 2013)

It's very possible that this is an important movie in the field of CGI and 3D technology. In that category it is certainly a groundbreaking pioneer and it will have its followers. In fact it already has (life of Pi). The artificial world that was created was amazingly beautiful and imaginative.
For this I give the movie all ten points.
But in the movie industry there are different categories. More than half of the playing time - namely the scenes of the Avatar world - belonged more or less to the category of animated movies with CGI effects. It was made rather on the computer than it was behind the camera.
The question is: shouldn't Avatar be treated and rated like an animated movie rather than a motion picture with real actors? Even animated movies and are judged as whole, not only for their outstanding visual execution.
If you extract the whole high tech visual aspect of Avatar what is left of it?
-average acting (except Sigurney Weaver) (- 1 point)
-predictable story (- 1 point)
-full of clichés: bad military people versus native peoples preserving nature (-1 point)
-full of stereotypes: there are either good or bad characters (-1 point)
If the Avatar world would have been replaced (and played) by some real Aborigines, this movie would have been neither noticed nor watched.
I read somewhere that this movie is the equivalent for pop music hits: Today for the best tomorrow for the garbage.