There are two polar views on the new biggest film of all time, James Cameron’s Avatar. The most popular is that it’s a life changing movie, with beautiful visuals, incredible special effects and a moving and inspiring story. Some people leave the cinema feeling depressed that life isn’t as beautiful as the movie.

Another point of view is that it’s an impressive technological achievement, but… And I am in this camp. Sure, the CGI effects are surprisingly convincing and the modeling of the aliens is probably better than we’ve seen before. What’s wrong with Avatar is.. well, it’s everything else.

I haven’t laughed so much in the cinema this year, at least certainly not at a script. The writing is so dull, contrived and cliched it’s impossible to take the characters seriously when they are trying to be serious. I was well aware most of the audience didn’t share my amusement, but what I am I to do? The story is not only predictable, but embarrassingly so. Cameron didn’t even try to tell an obvious tale in a new way, unless you consider ‘with blue people’ to be a new way. The predictability would have been painful enough, but the pain is doubled by two things. Firstly, the interminable length, and secondly the fact that every single thing in the story has to be explained to the viewer. Nothing is left to chance, leaving you feeling as if an idiot has been trying to patronise you. Not nice.

Then we have the design and effects. The effects have their moments, but are never as exciting as earlier movies like Terminator 2 or even the capsizing scene in Titanic. Worse still, the most impressive, “wow” effects come when you are supposed to be being horrified by the humans blowing up a giant tree house. It should be sad, but Cameron makes it look cool, and the most visceral, exciting part of the movie. Oops! The design could be a matter of taste, but there is nothing inspired about it. The aliens are a dreary mix of earthbound ‘ethnic’ chic and the color blue, while the human machines look like they’ve been ripped off from Cameron’s previous futuristic visions.

While the earnings from Avatar are huge, for a sci-fi movie so devoid of imagination and excitement to win the best film award would be awful. Star Trek was a much better sci-fi movie, and there are many more artistically valuable films to choose from. Luckily, the Oscar judges didn´t make the obvious (bad) choice