I haven’t seen many films that would stir such mixed impressions as James Cameron’s Avatar. Reviews are terribly mixed even if the average impression leans towards positive. I guess the heavy advertising around the movie manage to create a wave of high expectations that were never truly and completely fulfilled.

I, for one, decided to go and see Avatar after seeing a brief trailer in the cinema, way before being hit by the advertising machine of Cameron’s film company. At that time it seemed a nice soft fantasy movie, without any sort of great expectations, the kind of movie that makes you dream for a while before you forget that you even saw it. Nice but not special. Then, the advertising machine tried to paint it like the next Star Wars, the new pinnacle of special effects.

When the moment of truth came, of course some disappointment ensued. Why?

The story: the story is bland, forgettable, something you’ve seen over and over again. The good girl that makes the not-so-bad hero realize the error of his way, turning him over to her cause, is an over-told story. Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves and so on are many such examples. Everything about the story is stereotypical: dialogues, characters, story. Aside from the main characters is nearly impossible for the viewer to feel for any of the other characters. The story has no jolting moments, you know everything: the hero meets the aliens and he slowly learns their ways, loses and regains their trust, finally becoming one of them. As a small note, I was expecting him to “become” his avatar earlier in the movie, that one the only surprise and even that a small one.

On the other hand, the story is nice. If you don’t like predictable stories, you shouldn’t go see it, but if you’re someone like me, who likes to suspend disbelief and visit a gorgeous alien world in an exercise of imagination, go right ahead!

3D, not worth the price: the movie is shown in stereoscopic 3D, yet there’s nothing there to make it worth the 3D. A Christmas Carol and Journey to the Center of the Earth had moments where things were lunging out of the screen at you, making you jump with fear. In Avatar, there’s next to no 4D worthwhile moments. The only such moment I noticed was when the screen was filled with some phosphorescent floating seeds, but side from that, nothing. Surely enough, the alien world is amazing, is one of the few truly alien worlds ever depicted in a motion picture, yet this would look much better in HD rather than 3D.

All in all, James Cameron brought to life a nice story, but far from the epic level of Star Wars. In fact, there are few movies that have defined cinematography in the Sci-Fi genre and those are Star Trek, Star Wars, Galactica and Dune (both in the David Lynch version and the Hallmark version). After seeing this, I can say I’m excited about Cameron’s next project: Battle Angel Alita … that subject has more potential of being a real hit, instead of a recycling Sci-Fi stereotypes.