Avatar: Limited Edition Steelbook [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

Over Hyped Very overhyped film which took how long to make? Just like James Camerons last blockbuster Titanic which we all knew how ended has a vague deja vu here too! Nothing new here for sci-fi fans except some half decent cinematography, but doesn't hide the fact its very average with many people thinking or wanting it to be great because the oscars etc said so. Make up your own mind - watch it once, but not a classic in real terms.

Zzzzzzzzz Well there we have it. This film that cost zillions, took years to film and appears to have changed lives. A tree huggers, anti carbon footprint, share your toilet paper, environmentalists dream. I wonder what sort of carbon footprint Avatar made in it's creation? Anyway don't bother with it. It's quite pretty and all that, but it's is tedious, unoriginal, badly scripted, drawn out and boring. The best thing about it were the credits at the end.

Great Bought this in anticipation of buying a blue ray dvd player. Bought one the other week, and after working out that I had to download the latest firmware to the player, I got it to work. Love the DVD.

MASSIVELY overrated I was disappointed with this movie, because with Steven Spielberg comparing it to the release of the Star Wars movies thirty years ago, I was expecting an awesome sci-fi epic. Indeed, most of the film's positive reviews came with regards to its special effects -- which I must confess are fantastic. But for a film to stand above all the rest I need more than just pretty colours and images; and I don't feel this film went very much further than that. James Cameron needs to have a sit down and read the basics of plot construction: avoid cliches like the plague! The whole film is a cliche in my view: the plot is based on the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century; the technology is a rip off of the Xbox game Halo Wars; and is anyone else as tired as I am of that cheesey American wit and sarcasm? It is riddled, too, with references to current issues, not least the human nack for destroying things -- give us a break, James. I think it might have a gone a little easier if the budget was given to a lesser known director. This could have been an epic that stood the test of time, but sadly it's just a load of tosh like most of the other films currently showing at the cinema at the moment.

Hooray for Hollywood: Computer effects - 10; clichés - 5; story - 3; cost - don't ask James Cameron, it seems to me, creates wonderful dishware in which to place the most nourishing and satisfying of those things we humans crave. All those J. Cameron-imprinted tureens and goblets took rare imagination and meticulous craftsmanship to make. Just one piece can cost a Wall Street banker's annual bonus. They boggle. But look inside that tureen and there ain't no vichyssoise. Take Avatar. It is one of the most beautiful movies you'll ever hope to see. The planet Pandora is amazingly realized, from the milkweed fuzzballs that drift and give hope to the mountains in the sky, and I mean in the sky. Tens of millions of dollars created a computer-generated movie so detailed that the delight of the flora and fauna and the skill of director Cameron in keeping the story moving mask the fact that there isn't much story. I'd worry about a place where the laws of physics don't seem to work. We already know that attempts to turn humans into very tall, blue-green members of PETA have been a flop. All these quibbles are hardly worth bothering about. I was left with the impression that the story is unimportant; it was merely the hook on which Cameron could hang all those amazing, gorgeous, swooping, leaping, tumble-off-a-cliff-and-come-up-flying computer-generated effects. It would have made a difference if we'd had a story with a tale to tell, not just the tired clichés from Hollywood that man continues to scrape off mountaintops for coal, that war is bad, killing for food is worse, and that mankind must stop littering. Avatar is fun, but whatever ideas it seems to want us to know are as thick as a producer's headbone. What is so discouraging is the amount of money spent on Avatar. Like Titanic, I suspect that Avatar will decline in interest and significance as time and repeat viewing brings us to our senses. Still, the special effects were great in Titanic, too. However, while I like a good bowl of soup I can't help wishing I had two per cent of the gross.