Now before I get into this, I want to make clear that I set out to do this review with an unbiased opinion of Avatar. I put all the stuff about it being a rip-off of many films out of my mind when I sat down to watch it, so if I come to that conclusion, so be it.

Avatar is a rip-off of many films. It's a ripped-off story littered with little bits and pieces of what I would normally call homages, but under the circumstances will term petty theft. In fact the only original thing I can find about Avatar is that no one has had the balls to rip off so many films on such a scale before. The biggest victim of James Cameron's "inspiration" in my eyes is Dances with Wolves, and the similarities are so vast that Kevin Costner's career must be spinning in its grave.

However, originality isn't the only element required to make a good film, so we can't write Avatar off just on that basis. Well, actually we kind of can. Because it is pretty much just a collage of other films, it's so incredibly predictable that it's boring to watch, and this is made even more painful by the excessive 2 hour 40 minute run time.

Avatar also made 3D cool, which I hate. When I first saw this film in the cinema, the 3D effects were impressive, but they didn't add anything to the film, and you kind of phase them out after a bit. The 3D also ruined the lovely vivid colours of the film, and for me the aesthetic was its only redeeming factor.

The visual design of the film really is outstanding, but for me it doesn't make up for the lacklustre story, and you get the impression that the only idea James Cameron had for this film was the visuals, and he just chucked together a script to show them off.

The film is about a mining company who go to an alien planet to get unobtainium (subtle) at the cost of destroying the planet and the native people. A cripple called Jake gets accepted by the native people while he's in his 'avatar' and then he turns against the humans and fights to stop them.

The only gripes I have with the actual execution of the story on the whole are little bits and pieces, like Jake being able to use the avatar perfectly well straight away after being moaned at for having no experience, and the natives appearing to be very intelligent but then using arrows against metal aircraft to no avail, and then later on the arrows work against the aircraft. Stuff like that are the only problems I noticed with the film as it went on.

That's the trouble with Avatar. It cost half a billion dollars to make, and you can tell. It looks amazing, and the script is very well written (you can't even see the seams!). 10 out of 10 for execution. The problem lies in the story. It's as if someone came to James Cameron and said "You can have half a billion dollars to make a film but you have to come up with it right now." And James Cameron just ran around screaming "EPIC!!!"

Avatar is 3 hours of clichés. Pretty though.