Ava-hontas

**SPOILER ALERT**
If you haven't seen Avatar yet, and you don't want the plot to potentially be ruined for you, stop reading now.
Still here?
OK, great.  Now we can point and laugh at the people who left.

So I went with my friend to see Avatar the other night. I really hadn't been dying to see it, but I decided to go see what all the fuss was about. After seeing it I decided all the fuss was about the special effects, which should surprise no one. It was one of the most visually stunning movies I have ever seen. The 3D was pretty cool, but I have to say after 2 1/2 hours of it I kind of had a headache and my eyes felt like they were trying to cross. I think it would have been equally cool without the 3D. It just felt gimmicky to me.  Also, the "Na'vi" looked a little like the illegitimate children of the Smurfs and Thundercats.

Now for the plot. Oh, the plot...where do I even start. It was very obvious that they blew all their money on effects and didn't have any left over for a script. I had the feeling I had watched this movie before. Apparently I am not the only one. I kept waiting for somebody to break into "Colors of the Wind". In all seriousness, if James Cameron doesn't get sued by Disney over this I will be a little surprised. Obviously they were just using the script to give them an excuse to show off their shiny new effects. Honestly, I would have preferred they just left the script off. It would have been better if they had just said, "Here's an hour of some cool looking stuff we came up with after we smoked some opium." No plot, just an hour flying around on the dragon things. Whatever they were called.  Don't even get me started on the tree-hugging, hippie crap.

A couple of other things that bugged me about the movie. First, why did "Pandora" look like a black-light putt-putt course at night? That was just ridiculous. Second, whoever the designer was that decided the subtitles should have been in "Papyrus" font should be drug out in the middle of the road and shot. I mean seriously, "Papyrus"? The only font that could have possibly been any worse would have been "Comic Sans". Or "Wingdings". Well, maybe "Wingdings" would have actually been better, because then I wouldn't have been able to read all the stupid, predictable crap they were saying.

Bottom line:
Visual effects- *****
Everything else- *