10/10 Visually. 1/10 Originality. Come on James Cameron

Rating: 4/10 (22 September 2013)

The first thing I ever heard about Avatar was it was amazing, a must see, the greatest movie ever made. Well, the first thing I heard was wrong. The movie had loads of entrancing visuals with fine acting, generic characters, a lacking script and an already old, recycled, generic and plain unoriginal storyline.
The first thing I mentioned was the visuals, which were as stunning as you've heard. The gigantic budget for this surely must have added something to this awesome spectacle. After watching the movie I felt like the only redeeming quality was the visuals which is why I gave the movie a 4.
Second, the acting. The acting was passable. Just like the acting in Transformers, I wouldn't go into this movie expecting Oscar-caliber acting. Sigourney Weaver was the high point considering most of the acting was by the CGI it just wasn't impressive. When all your acting is done by animators it's hard not to notice the lack of acting the movie has.
Third, generic characters. Most James Cameron movies have characters that are interesting and more than one dimensional these are a bit of a let-down. You have complete cardboard cut-out type characters that don't seem to have any layers besides good-guy and bad-guy. No character is a wild card like Han Solo or Hannibal Lecter. These characters were not simply a one or two word definition these characters were complex and had conflicts and such. But not so with the characters in here.
Fourth, a lacking script. Cheap dialogue. While dialogue isn't everything it certainly is nice to have great dialogue such as Dr. Strangelove. The dialogue is a bit generic and unoriginal.
The blow that kills the movie more than any of its wounds. The awful storyline. While not only ripping off every movie pro-environment it doesn't change anything. It should be title Dances with Wolves 2: Blue Space Indians. The Näví are just blue Native Americans with less clothing. Starting with the white guy who is coming to a new place and is shown the ropes. He gets accepted into the tribe of whatever and realizes the other white people are bad people and he must help the tribe because white people don't listen to anybody but themselves. White people=bad except for the random white guy in the crowd who helped them out. Also, the one girl who is a little sketchy of the white guy at first ends up falling in love with him stupid clichè. The end is some stupid battle where white people with technology get killed by the tribe using bows and arrows and rocks. Yep, that's totally original it doesn't sound like any other movie I've ever seen (sarcasm). Dances with Wolves was a far better movie than this pro-environmental trash.
In recap, this movie is completely bland tasting but has a delicious feast for the eyes. Good special effects don't make a movie. Look at Transformers 1, 2 or 3.An intriguing plot, good characters and good acting make a great movie. For stunning visuals and these other qualities I'd suggest Life of Pi, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Pacific Rim (acting was again passable in Pacific Rim's case). Avatar was a complete let down and completely unoriginal.