Incredibly Disappointing

Rating: 1/10 (24 April 2010)

First, the obvious---this is a special effects driven movie. If you remove the special effects and had the story take place with even slightly lower budget special effects, the movie would have never seen the light of day. When characters died in the movie, whether good or bad, I felt nothing because we didn't get to know the characters. Who are they? Why are they behaving the way they're behaving? These were never answered and I doubt that there would be any good answer because the characters were too thin. They are paper thin---either all bad or all good. There is no depth to any of the characters.
Many pieces of the film do not have any explanation. Unobtanium: what is it? Why do people want it so badly? There are no answers because the name says all that is important---it's unobtainable---so people must want it and the characters (and the entire movie) is driven by something we know nothing about and do not care about.
The ending of any movie should leave you with a sense of awe, disbelief or a tear. Unfortunately, Avatar did none of these for me. The only thing I could see is that it was left open for a sequel. What is worse is that as I am editing this review I had written a year ago, I am disappointed to find out that it is going to be a trilogy. Three feature length films for what current amounts to the depth of a typical 30 minute cartoon (other than Bugs Bunny---which has more depth than this).
I had high expectations for Avatar. Avatar was nominated for Best Picture and I was expecting shock and awe but I was only impressed by the special effects. This should not have been nominated for best picture. In reality I would have given this film a 5 or a 6 of 10. However, as it is currently rated at an 8.2 I believe it warrants a 1 to balance out the other reviews that are awed by the special effects. The film will be forgotten quickly---but the coming sequels will keep it in people's minds. Watch it again, you'll be disappointed.
Was the movie entertaining? Yes, but not overly entertaining. Was it visually stunning? Yes. But the story was weak and had far too many holes in it.
I hope and pray that this isn't the future of the film industry.