Mohammad Arfeen

Avatar was a good movie, not a great movie, not an amazing movie, and nowhere near as great as most critics and people made it out to be. I’m going to preface this review with a little informative blurb. Many times a movie comes out and a bunch of critics will say that it is one of the most amazing movies of all times, and then a bunch of people will go watch it in the first week and rant/rave about it. At this point I go okay, maybe I should go see it; remember by now the movie has been significantly hyped up, and I am expecting to see one of the greatest movies of all time. I walk in and find myself severely underwhelmed. “The Dark Knight” was a movie that blew my mind, everyone was raving about it, and it was better than all the reviews I had heard. “District 9” was a movie that I went into not expecting much, to be fair I hadn’t heard much about “District 9” and I was amazed at how good a movie it was. Avatar was an overhyped movie that really underwhelmed; it came nowhere near matching any of the hype around it. In fact I would say that both “The Dark Knight” and “District 9” were better movies than Avatar.

Let’s really get into the review now, you already know that I found it extremely underwhelming, did I like any of it? Well; Yes I did. I found the graphics and special effects to be completely mind blowing, the way the 3D effects were employed was so natural. I think that most of this movies merit is on the special effects. In my opinion there is little to no acting merit in this movie, and there is little to no plot value.

I found the story to be extremely predictable, and fairly poorly executed. I was not surprised when I heard a critic call it “the story of many third world countries, as told by blue people.” The critic hit the nail right on the head; much of Avatar’s merit lies in the political message it delivers. The message of the movie was great, but I believe that too many people now are starting to rate movies based on their message, it could be a terrible movie with a great message, and get rave reviews, but I believe that movies should be reviewed on their merits as a movie.

So my final rating for Avatar is 5/10 stars, most of the stars are for the special effects and the 3D graphics, with a few thrown in for the sub-par story, acting, and great message. Overall this is a movie I might watch if I saw on coming on TV, I would not go out of my way to watch this movie again. I would suggest that people watch it in IMAX 3D or REAL 3D at least once to get the value of the great visuals, but I can’t see myself paying to watch it more than once.