Avatar looks less than good (bad?)

James Cameron’s Avatar has had high expectations. Since it’s his first movie since Titanic, everybody’s all “It’ll be great. Oscars all around.” So we finally get a look at the masterpiece today and it looks… bad? I hate to say it, but what the hell is going on? The man who was hailed for amazing visuals in Titanic has less-than-Jar Jar Binks quality aliens running around, fighting, making friends with people, hating on each other/humans? Flying in plant/machine airships? Floating islands??

I don’t understand, but maybe I’m just not sensitive to the extreme ends of the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre this is clearly leaning toward. I hate to say it, but I might be more excited for M. Night Shyamalan’s Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. Yuck. :(s all around.

9 comments to Avatar looks less than good (bad?)

  • matt

    yup – good post. surely the biggest hype victim of all time. i posted almost an identical post on my own blog. along the lines of – what the hell is this? it looks horrible. just horrible. this looks like a some kinda save the rainforest thing with explosions in the middle. jims lost it after all this time playing with his gadgets.

  • Prizm

    I agree. I saw the trailer and it looks crap. The whole plot looks like cliche hollywood fare: guy gets sympathetic towards group of struggling people (in this case aliens) and has to turn his back on his peers in order to help them. Lame, and seen it a million times.

    And in the meantime 3-4 other movies have already used up the living-life-as-an-avatar gimmick – (Gamer, Surrogates, etc).

    Sounds like Cameron wasted too much time on this movie and the ideas are going to be old hat by the time its released. Sounds like another Waterworld failure.

  • Advice Man

    This crap will be bookmarked as one of the most colossal artistic and pecuniary FLOPS of all times.

    Hey, Jimbo: better go back to the drawing board and give us “Titanic II: The Ship That Didn’t Sink, After All.” You bloew it with this convoluted and ultimately immensely BOOOOOORING mess, buddy.

  • Pessi

    Best movie ever. U sound so stupid 😀 haha ! there is no one who can say anything bad about this movie just accept it. Amazing movie !! just sick

  • schmuck

    Avatar is nothing more then a load of CGI fuss. And actually pretty bad, because the CGI characters look like dolls without any expression. Really awful. Not to mention the crappy and flat storyline and the lack of any character development. It just sucks and is hyped by the youngish cinema hipster goers who don’t have any mature taste yet. Give this bullshit about 10 years and it will be long forgotten that this once has been hyped among IMDb’s top 250. It seems the audience is getting dumber with each generation, Nintendo-crippled minds who know nothing about cinema than the dish that is served regularly through MTV.

  • kenny

    I just wanted to know if the author of the article saw the film already. I tried looking for the name but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. The film should be out wherever you are and I just wanted to know your opinion on it. Thanks!

    Jamie Reply:

    Well you have interesting timing because I saw it less than 12 hours ago. Let me say that this first trailer does not do the movie justice (visually). It does, however, do the plot justice. That gross, generic plot. In general, though, I think my opinion falls pretty much in line with what most critics I’ve read are saying.

    Visually, this movie is a masterpiece. I saw it in IMAX 3D, and I’m pretty sure that’s the only way to see it. Cameron and his crew are definitely talented visual artists, and their vision is brought to the screen in ways that completely blew me away.

    That said, the story line of Avatar is pretty lousy. It’s very Mickey Mouse, Saturday morning cartoon, predictable stuff. In other words, it was mush. BLECH. But the movie isn’t about the story, and it’s not about the characters and it’s certainly not about the acting. It’s 100 percent about the visual symphony that James Cameron has made.

    I can’t speak as to how the movie looks in any other format, but having seen it in that IMAX 3D, I can confidently say that it has changed the way I look at movies. Just let the stupid story line hold you for the three hours you get to sit wide-eyed, drooling in your seat. That’s what I think.

    Headline should read: “Avatar Is Good (To Look At).”

  • Dan

    I agree with you Schmuck, i still havent seen it because the trailers look crap!. And im fed up of feeling like i have to see a film because of the hype that its given, i feel cheated when people say “the USA’s most groundbreaking film”, or the Film that rocked the UK etc…, Avatar looks like some cheap budget film that you buy from a “Anything for a $1 Store”. I think the character animations are terrible, it looks like someones just hooked a Sega Megadrive upto a Cinema projector. 🙂 Thats me done…

  • Right on. This movie was bad on all levels. I slept through half of it (in the theater with my 3D glasses on – no joke) so I guess I can’t say that I have actually seen the whole thing. The CGI is way over-the-top and there’s a bunch of neon creatures that fly around the screen that remind me of the cheap shows my kids watch on Saturday mornings. And the dialogue is some of the worst I’ve ever had to endure. Completely sucks the mystery out of the whole thing. Where’s the ‘masterpiece’ all my friends were talking about? LOL!!!!!