Avatar, James Cameron’s brand new movie designed to blow you away. Well I watched it, and I’ll tell you one thing. I was not blown away. Especially when the story can be so concisely  wrapped up as, “The Last Samurai on Mars.”

The first hour of the movie was regrettably the most awesome. Establishing the world that we are going to be viewing for the next hour and a half. But even then, I can’t say really just how rich the story was, sure the Aliens were original enough (if you don’t count Native Americans), but most the concepts in this movie have been seen before. (Anyone remember Fern Gully?)

That said, it wasn’t anything resembling a waste of my time. The movie was pretty good, I wish everyone thought about their movies as much as James Cameron did. Although I think he is horrible at writing dialog. Referring mostly to Colonel Miles Quaritch, but not stopping there. A great example would be when James Cameron pays homage to himself, having one of his marines say, “Get some!” Much like when Michael Bay paid homage to his own film, Bad Boys II, in the midst of Transformers II.

I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the soundtrack being similar to other soundtracks, but as a barely capable listener, I didn’t think the soundtrack stood out as good or bad. The person sitting next to me had to elbow me and say, “There’s music playing.” because I was none the wiser, I said, “Ah.” which they confused with appreciation for the visuals.

Which brings me to my next point, the visuals. Eh!…Breathtaking? I guess so, sometimes…Was it worth 300 million? Nope…Was it worth watching in 3-D?…Not really. Honestly I thought the Dark Knight felt more visually stimulating, not to mention Pan’s Labyrinth. Some of the creatures were really cool, but honestly some of them didn’t make sense to me. The marines were the biggest let down though. Personally for action and cool technology, I would have to give the award to district 9 over Avatar, and for $30 Million dollars.

The last thing I want to get off my chest, is the dangerous forest. I hate that they made it as “Dangerous” as they did, with all the creatures they showed in the first hour. Then as soon as they establish how dangerous it is, it’s no longer dangerous ever again. It bugged me a little when the same thing happened after the first season of Lost, but I think it really stood out as annoying in this movie.

Also I would like to bring light of the fact, that the six creatures of Pandora, awesome as they were, didn’t feel like the inhabitants of an entire world. They should have designed tons more creatures. They were so shamelessly stealing characteristics from Earth animals anyway, why not transmute a few more? A six legged anything else. And maybe some water.

To wrap the whole thing up into a pretty bag. This movie is better than most the movies that you see in the theatre, but far from perfect. The story isn’t spectacular, the science is nothing special, the characters barely function, and the dialog is dumb. Bring your kids, it’s James Cameron’s second best film! Definitely worth watching once. I’m giving it a whopping 7/10!