Didn't love it, didn't hate it

Rating: 5/10 (23 April 2010)

I finally got to watch avatar yesterday after hearing the tons and tons of hype surrounding it. I've also heard the criticisms about the story being cliché and boring, so I was in the middle with expectations on this.
The Good: Special Effects: Spectacular The Setting: I LOVE movies set in the future. I have always been fascinated to see where we might end up as a race, what we might be doing and where we would go. The planet/moon was beautiful and very interesting to watch and explore. The battle at the end was also pretty cool too.
The not so good: The Story: It's not a bad story, it's just been used to death in so many different ways. Like I said the special effects were fantastic effects don't make a movie, I could have muted the TV through the whole thing and still be just as entertained as I was when I watched it. It seems like Cameron used up all his imagination on the planet/moon and had none leftover for the story. Now, I don't mind stories that have been used before. Since blockbuster movies have been around for almost 100 years, it must be getting harder for filmmakers to come up with anything that hasn't already been used. But as long as they breathe at least a little originality into the story it can work for more me. Unfortunately I saw none of that here. I guess they figured if everyone just looked different that would be enough.
I know this movie has a BIG liberal "green" message attached to it and I don't mind that, I love my planet too =) But I think they overdid a few things in that message, IMHO they made the company and the colonel a bit too evil. They were so evil it just seemed too unrealistic. This is how companies and people in power acted 300 years ago. Could anyone actually get away with anything like what they were doing to the planet and the Na'vi today? Course, without laws, rules or regulations who knows what big companies would do in the name of profits today. But with the colonel, there seemed to be no reason for how he acted. His motives were pretty cloudy, one minute it seemed to be for revenge, next it was following orders, then it was cause he just loved killing stuff or was it for money? They also painted capitalism in a pretty bad light. I don't agree with them, but it's their opinion so I won't dwell on it.
The Acting: No one really stood out. Many of the lines were cheesy. Everyone just seemed to read the lines they were given.
Names: I just wanted to mention too that some of the names of things in this film are kinda silly. Pandora, it's cool, yet cheesy. Unobtanium. UNOBTANIUM!? I realize that this is a name chemists and scientists give this nickname to elements that are very hard to come by, but come on.
I think the main problem with this film is that it came out at the wrong time. If this came out 40 or 50 years ago I think it would have been much more wonderful and memorable. I also think that Jim Cameron fell into the same trap many big directors do like Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg and Scorcese (to an extent). They just become so enraptured in their own fame and their egos get so bloated that they figure that if their name is attached to a film, it can't be bad! I love Jim Cameron's films(except Titanic), but this is in no way his best.
I'd better finish this up. In a nutshell, if you've seen Dances with Wolves, Ferngully, Dinotopia or Pocahontas, you've seen this already. However if you love visuals, then definitely see this cause you won't be disappointed.