What's the point? Impressive production falls flat with a lousy drama.

Rating: 6/10 (25 January 2010)

I'll admit that I was expecting a lot from this movie. I had heard about the huge budget and effort required to create it and had heard that it was a landmark movie that was going to take the movie business to a new level. I didn't like the movie at all. It was a trite straightforward drama with colorless characters, recycled elements, WOW factors we've seen before and a weak "showdown" climax.
Ground breaking CGI: Big deal. I don't know about 10 year old kids, but I've seen so much CGI, for so long, that it's simply boring. Yes the glowing flowers and such were beautiful (even if the dandelion seeds were overused), but so what? Movies are best about things in our real world, like courage, loyalty and friendship. Glowing flowers are nice but can't carry a movie.
Too many recycled elements from Aliens, Terminator, Star Wars, and Transformers: Weaver, cybersleep, the loaders, the veloci-copters, the gunship, the flight deck, the pilot, the sarge, the combat drop, the walkers (Star Wars). Even the guy that can't walk now being able to walk is from "Lost."
Trite, straightforward and pretty ham-handed drama of the military guy against the ethical soldier against the scientists against the natives...Universal Soldier (Van Damme), Soldier (Kurt Russell).
Avatar concept is old, and even more so now that that concept is recycled into the virtual reality gimmick: Sargon controlling Kirk, Kirk exchanging minds with that crazy lady that wanted to be Captain, Spock's Brain (where his body was controlled by a remote control), The Matrix.
Weaver's character was a waste - she did not play a big part in the story and the part that she did play was sketchy. Weaver had been there how many years? Teaching them English? And she's still there leading the team even though the military is there moving? And the natives still accept her? Weaver is all hostile to the new guy right up until she puts him in the mind link chamber. Then they meet up on the other side and she's all smiles and charm towards him. Huh? The climactic battle was a lot like the Ewoks against the Empire in "Return of the Jedi," right down to the grenades in the engines.
The big revelation in the movie of the neural network of the trees fell totally flat. That was supposed to be a big dramatic moment but I think everyone in the audience, just like those on the command deck were like: "So what? Is that supposed to mean something?" There were only a few lines in the movie that supported that plot line and after the big revelation it was pretty much dropped.
Characters were not colorful and well differentiated like in Aliens (All the characters were colorless: The wheelchair guy, his buddy, Weaver, the traitorous pilot, the native mother and father had extremely small parts, the native prince was colorless, even the princess was pretty colorless, the pencil pusher heartless bureaucrat, the Colonel was the only character that was almost good), there was no sparkling dialog like all throughout Aliens.
It seems that some of the "Wow factor" of the movie was contained in the computer displays in the lab, especially the ones that could be swiped off the wall and onto a tablet PC. If they thought that would impress me....oh please. Spielberg already tried all that exact same stuff in "Minority Report" to equally unimpressive results and Cameron, of all people, should know that no matter how impressive your production is, it's useless without a great drama with all of the elements needed to make drama great.