Dances with wolves meets Ray Harryhausen

Rating: 1/10 (4 January 2010)

This is an expensively made but dreadful film. It feels like sitting through 2 hours of a visually fine computer game. As many have already said, the plot is a rehash of Dances With Wolves (among many others). The ending is predictable from halfway through the movie and, because this is a Hollywood film we inevitably sit through a noisy battle climax in which the baddies are gradually wiped out till only the chief baddie is left for hand-to-hand combat with the chief goodie. Yawn.
The many monsters that pop up as computer animations ad nauseum are consistently reminiscent of the earlier creations of the marvellous Ray Harryhausen and are used in much the same way: either in combat with the blue or white bipeds or as allies in the form of flying or galloping mounts.
Unless you have a major cerebral dysfunction common to the producers of Avatar's cretinous plot (the main complaint about the film is that at root it's just plain dumb!) you'll need to look out for the many sources of unintentional amusement. Enjoy Sigourney Weaver's avatar's curious two-piece beach outfit, which stands out ridiculously against the other bare-breasted, loinclothed females, presumably because this actress refused to work topless. (The toplessness seems curiously gratuitous anyway.) Enjoy the countless continuity lapses and scientific idiocies (two helicopter props rotating on the same shaft will counteract each other's thrust: duh!). Think about what it would really take to transport the endless huge machines and other installations to another planet.
If, at the moment you see the trolleys of bombs being loaded on the main aircraft, you briefly think it's a cargo of beer cans, you'll probably share my view of this film. In a year or two it will take its rightful place as an expensive movie curiosity. Meanwhile it will continue to be regarded as a wonderful experience by those too young to have watched anything other than similar computerized shoot-em-ups animated with less gloss and panache.