User reviews

The only thing this movie did for me was make me soooo bored I actually started remembering the plot of FernGully. Which I hadn't seen in like 18 years. I couldn't even remember its name. When I arrived home I furiously searched the internet for this mystery movie that I had forgotten and that Avatar somehow reminded me of.

Then I found it and realized that it's exactly the same plot, except that it's a movie for children - which incidentally AVATAR also is, it's just that it cost 500$ billion, or whatever, to make so they had to pretend like it was for adults, but it really isn't. It's a kid's movie, and a 2 hours too long one at that.

Frankly, what surprised me most about it was that it gets such good reviews... from almost everyone. I'm going to sit and wonder why for a while.

I really did not like the way way this movie was advertised " A film that will change the face of cinema etc etc etc " . I'm one of those strange creatures who is actually turned off by hyperbolic markerteering . On top of that I'm not someone who's going to sit in a cinema wearing 3D glasses . It's bad enough being a speccy in real life . Who wants to add expensive insult to injury by sitting in a cinema looking like a muppet with shades ? In summary I had no intention of watching AVATAR in a cinema if at all

In April I found myself on a very long plane trip from Heathrow to India and decided that because I'd seen most of what was on offer I decided to watch AVATAR . Being on a plane where the format is cropped and missing the 3D visuals means that you're able to concentrate on the story . The truth is that the plot is absolutely threadbare and is padded out with long sequences that might seduce an audience in to watching the visuals but plot wise there's nothing happening at all

Fault number one - there's very little happening to the plot for large chunks of the movie . Fault number two is that character wise everything is black and white . Good guys ( Read humans ) are blacker than the darkest night while good guys ( Read blue skinned aliens ) are so white they're brighter than the sun itself. It's almost like watching a simplistic revisionary Western where the Indians are the goodies and the calvary are the baddies . I say " almost " because Hollywood has never come up with a Western like that and never will . There is no complexity involved what so ever . The bad guys are bad guys and the good guys are good guys and there's no motives involved . Some people may complain that LORD OF THE RINGS also suffered from this characterization but at least the LOTR wasn't a 3D gimmick and had saving graces . Take away the 3D and you'll find AVATAR has no other function as a marketing tool . Also nice to know it was stuffed at the Oscars by the cheap and compelling tiny budget THE HURT LOCKER

I was honestly very disappointed by Avatar, and this reaction is despite my enjoyment of the homage to Philip Jose Farmer and some other very well-executed scifi flourishes. My problem is that, as a social commentary, Avatar One was entirely misguided. I am a huge James Cameron fan, but he is at his best when telling stories, which he does quite well. So blowing up "evil" corporations is the way to save the world? How about looking at how it really is? These days, miners spend decades working out agreements with indigenous peoples, providing job training, repairing environmental damage, etc. Avatar is about 100 years out of date in its social commentary. In my own view of the long-term future, we will have unlimited fusion power, and raw materials will be derived primarily, perhaps entirely, through robotic recycling. So maybe we will leave the era of mining the earth entirely behind us (maybe we'll mine asteroids instead - space travel looks different when energy is virtually free). But Mr. Cameron is not telling us ANYTHING about what could make it better in future. He has no real technological imagination, and Avatar spells that out in spades. There are many brilliant failures in science fiction, and unfortunately, Avatar is yet another of them.

Yes, the special effects were impressive - but they just went on too long. The first segment, where she was teaching him about Pandora, had some magnificent effects, but I really did not need 20 minutes to get the point. Then, the first "war" although horrible enough in its unreasonable ferocity of modern war power against the natives with only arrows and spears was followed up with another one, even more horrible, purely for the sake of the special effects. I was holding my ears and closing my eyes, the mass destruction of these wonderful people was all too close to the American destruction of the native American Indians, with all its destructiveness. There was no character development, the acting was so simplistic, the plot formulaic, the dialog trite and simple.

I wanted to like this film, but was ready to leave about half way though - and if Cameron had held to a disciplined directing mode it would only have been half as long and a much better picture.

I can not stand this movie. In my fictional list of most hated movies, Avatar is ranked numero uno. Don't get me wrong, in a cinematic view, it's not that bad. It's not garbage, it IS stomachable.. but it was definitely not good or "brilliant". Actually sub par is a good way to describe it. It was a let down considering how much hype this movie gets.

How can i hate a movie that is a tad under average? well my hatred of this movie stems from the fact that everyone think's it is a masterpiece, and the sad part is, i think half of these fanboys only like it because they're supposed to like it. I could sit here all day and list reasons why this movie is garbage, but instead i'll just leave you with a quote from my English teacher before every power point assignment: "Visuals and extras do not make a powerpoint, content does- don't waste your time with special effects, animations, background, or transitions until your message is perfected."

---May contain spoilers--- OK, so here we have Avatar, the most monstrously-hyped, obscenely expensive and ultimately biggest let down of a film in history.

I'm not gonna lie, I was completely blown away by the fantastic visuals and thought. The CGI and special effects are breathtaking...I accept. However, this film just fails to deliver on so many levels. I would like to think of myself as one of the few individuals that saw this movie who was not blind to the glaring limitations thanks to being absorbed into the aesthetically pleasing elements of this film. NO THANKS!

I am well aware that there are numerous reviews on the site that equal disaffection to the movie as I do but I had to chip in with my two pence because the fact that this film as become the highest grossing film of all time worldwide is not at all surprising but is utterly disgusting.

The staggering global revenue of this film doesn't mean anything. What do you expect when you have a film twelve years after James Cameron's last cash cow of a film, Titanic, that swept the Oscars and generated obscene amounts of money? I suppose we can thank James Cameron for taking almost $300 million and producing a cinematic experience that is so vastly inferior to The Lord of The Rings and Star Wars in terms of imaginative scope. Thumbs up Cameron! I have to admit that the film had stacks of potential after the first half an hour. Sam Worthington, who played Jake Sully, an ex-marine who is sent to the world of Avatar as a one of the locals, falls in love, has to gain the approval of her father. I don't think we have ever seen these concepts in a film before. Oh wait...yes we have. The film, however, transcends shamelessly into a catastrophic blend of CGI-fuelled emotional emptiness and mediocre acting, excluding Stephen Lang, I liked him. The films ending is laughable! Truly pathetic. I cant remember ever being so bored watching a series of mindless explosions and gunfire in an imaginary world. Well done Cameron.

So there you go, Avatar, an unbelievable visual extravaganza that fails miserably in every other aspect that film can. I will be extremely disappointed if Cameron pips his ex-spouse Kathryn Bigelow for the Best Director and Best Picture awards at the Oscars, not that the Oscars get many things right.

Oh yeah! Almost forgot, the Avatar's live in a huge tree! Brilliantly inventive and exciting...oh wait on second thoughts, not so much. Calling Avatar a masterpiece and a breakthrough in cinema is bordering on unforgivable.

2/10 A point for the visuals and a point for the film actually being made.

You know it's bad when the Sonic cartons both SATAM and Adventure had a better way to telling people to save the planet and that's a SHOW!!!

The characters are so boring and so predictable I thought Michael Bay was directing it, except for Stephen Lang who is the saving grace of Fern Gully Pocahanus but with blue people. Our two main leads boring as hell with nothing interesting to add, along with Sigourney Weaver who I think was away from action films for to long causes she just acts tough not believing it. The plot is every single save the planet where humans are bad. The CGI is good though.

3D graphics, 1D story. Great special effects, but that is about it. The story is basic, cheesy and predictable, like it was meant for kids (and it probably was). The greeny/anti-capitalism/anti-imperialism themes are laid on so thick you can't help but support the "bad" guys.

Characters are hardly developed at all, so you have very little empathy for them.

And to top it all off, the movie goes on for 160 minutes! Once the novelty of the great CGI has worn off, it quickly starts to drift and gets boring. James Cameron could have left it at about 100 minutes, and not missed anything. There are several scenes that add nothing to the movie, except for Cameron to gratuitously show off his CGI prowess, again.

Surely one of the most over-rated movies of all time.

Being a sci-fi fan I really wanted to like this one, but came out of theater with mixed feelings. Yes, it has great visual effects and 3-d is pretty nice for the first hour or so. But there is very little behind this eye candy. Simplistic, unoriginal story that one can pretty much can guess after first 10-15 minutes, LOTS of clichés, mediocre actor's performance. Once the dust settles and 3D movies become more mainstream, I really can't see this movie stand the test of time.

I am also pretty surprised that in era of modern computer games, people find themselves "blown away" by visual effects. Games like "Crysis" or "Mass Effect" can pretty much match Avatar visuals while providing you with much more entertaining level of interactivity (and yes, you can play them in 3D). This "movie" does feel a lot more like a computer game rather than a movie, somebody please tell EA that they are sitting on a gold mine :).

Disclaimers: 1. No, I am not a hard-core gamer, I am a software engineer (non-game related). 2. I do have a dedicated Home Theater with 130" screen, so I it is not easy to impress me with "big screen" effect. YMMV :)

When his brother is killed in a robbery, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully decides to take his place in a mission on the distant world of Pandora. There he learns of greedy corporate figurehead Parker Selfridge's intentions of driving off the native humanoid Na'vi in order to mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland.

This film was pretty good when it was released the first time and called "Ferngully". This time, it is a thinly veiled political message with some awful animation. Iam aware of the work that went into it, but it still ends up looking like a cartoon, which is a failed endeavor.

"I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality," said Abbas Kiarostami. And that is exactly right. If "Avatar" is praised for its technology, and not for its direction, acting or intriguing plot, what good is it as a film?

Yes, yes, yes, I know it's not original. I don't care. No movie is original anymore, this one just so happens to be blatantly obvious in how it's not original. Yes, it's pretty, yes 3D is better because of James Cameron, yes I know all of this, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about James Cameron himself.

James Cameron is a man that I greatly respect. I'm sorry, a man I greatly respectED. I loved True Lies, I enjoyed Aliens (even though it shouldn't have been made) Terminator 2 was amazing, and Titanic (I still think it didn't deserve best picture) was a blast. This man has a talent for turning things he writes into pure gold. This man knows how to make a good movie. But making good movies is not what's on his mind. Can you say profiteer? I began to realize this when the 1997 Academy Awards came around. They announced Titanic instead of Good Will Hunting, and I was happy for James Cameron. Then, he got up there, grabbed his award, and said,"I'm King of the world!" so half-heartedly, flailing his arms around. Then a thought occurred to me, "THIS is James Cameron? No, James Cameron is more original than ripping off his own movie!" That was just the beginning.

His specialty is character development. The characters always had a new perspective on life at the end (if they survive) in a way that betters them and makes the audience feel good about themselves even though the endings are not always happy. But then just after winning his three Oscars for Titanic, Linda Hamilton said,"Honey, you're focusing too much on your own movies. Here, I got some VHS tapes for you. I got Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and Ferngully and Star Wars Episode VI. Just relax and enjoy someone else's work." James Cameron fell asleep while watching the Smurfs, and had a dream that night. In 3D.

The 3D was the best part of that dream, and he started thinking, "I've got a movie." He crapped out a screenplay and began work on the effects. That's my whole problem with this movie, he realized people like special effects more than story these days. Because he likes money. We all know that films are stories. STORIES. Not art shows, stories. Every year, there are more and more profiteering filmmakers and James Cameron has taken off his veil to reveal the dollar signs in his eyes. Watch as he devotes the rest of his career to making movies prettier.

As far as the story of this film goes--I was rather disappointed. Why do you ask? That's simple. I've seen this movie before--TWICE! Maybe you've heard of them: "Dances with Wolves" and "FernGully". If you've seen those two movies, you've seen "Avatar". From a story standpoint, anyhow.

The only reason I didn't give this movie a 1 rating was because of the visualizations. I'll be humble and give Cameron's mind credit on that one. The effects, visuals, and ground-breaking scenery were quite breath-taking at times and extraordinarily conceived.

However, with a film that is nearly 3 hours long--I, personally, need something more than a film that has an entertaining "acid" trip as it were with a story that I've seen at least twice from films that were just as entertaining.

i watched this yesterday and i was really disappointed, i cannot see what people see in this movie. the story makes no sense at all, all the characters are really clichéd, and the whole movie is ridiculously predictable.

especially the plot element with the marine being in a wheelchair feels really forced, seeing some guy in a wheelchair in a spaceship between walking mecha-robots felt unreal, even more unreal than the sigourney weaver character smoking inside a tech lab 150 years in the future...

as for the visuals, they might be the best effects to date, but the world of pandora still doesn't look real. it has a computer-gamish look on it, and since the whole storyline is like something someone wrote down in 10 minutes for a computer game, i couldn't help but feeling like i was watching some game trailer.

If you are under 12, you might find this movie exciting, but just because the movie has digitally animated characters doesn't make it good- just a glorified cartoon. Personally, I found the 1970's/80's special effects much more realistic looking (Remember some of the characters from the first three Star Wars movies?) The plot of Avatar is nothing new- a bunch of greedy/irresponsible scientists and military planning to invade/exploit a harmless bunch of natives.

The main female avatar was especially annoying- whiny, unstable and hostile- but hey, isn't how most female characters are (unfortunately) portrayed on TV and in movies these days? If you saw Avatar because it was 3D, the effects were pitiful compared to those (albeit very gory effects) of My Bloody Valentine or The Final Destination.

With over 2000 posts already, what else can one say about this extraordinary movie? Sure, it's derivative. Yes, it is episodic. It is certainly very spectacular. But that is the nature of 3D: it's nothing if not spectacular. Even stereo slide shows are pretty, but prettiness is never enough. The sound, the music? More Wagner than Morricone, but how many original tunes are there anyway? The Morricone sound is there, and even the visuals from 'The Mission' are there. Look at that climb up the waterfall. What point was it, except, say, 'Why don't we have a waterfall?' Then there's the too-lengthy horse-breaking sequence. Every second Western has to have one. You want acting? Thankfully, none of the cast is required to act, even though there is a hint or two that one or two of them have some histrionic ability. Drama? The essence of drama is conflict, with a change in the characters as part of the resolution. The character, Grace, does change, but altogether too early in the show to be really part of the drama. I did stay until the end of the credits; were there really 3000 on the payroll? I suspect that the walkouts were more a matter of bladder control than boredom. Or was it the headache from the 3D glasses? This retired cinematographer has great admiration for the technical staff. They are very clever indeed. But it is possible to be clever and unintelligent, and in this movie they go close to that.