So, our next film, Classic or Crud, Hit or Miss, what say you ALL?

Our next film open for discussion, and ultimately an Overall RATING by you all, is:


Let the discussions flow. Likes, dislikes, classic film or overhyped trash, and DONT FORGET to place an Overall Rating when youre done.

Its easy, just give a Rating from 1 (Jaws 4:The Revenge) to 10 (Jaws), and thats it. Course I'd love to have you all give reasons as to why you feel it deserves this Overall Rating, and more than encourage discussions with us all about them.

So, what say you all?

Next Film: ??????

5/10

It was pretty to look at (although I have a problem with the 3D glasses at the theatre, which took away from that a bit), but that just isn't enough to make a good movie.
It was okay to watch it once on the big screen, but I'm okay to leave it at that.

6/10.

Awesome shallowness. Amazing visuals, abysmal plot, characters, acting, dialogue, you name it.

But the visuals were good enough to actually get it up to a 6.

Visually a 9 - cuttung edge and original
Plotwise a 5 - weak and predictable

That averages out to a 7.

Personally, if youre taking that route, Id say Visually this film was an 11 (which would raise your final score to 8)

I liked this movie. A lot. Sure, we've seen the story before (Pocahontas), but it was a great spin on that story. Amazing visuals is a given. Even though the movie was close to 3 hours long (and unlike Watchmen), it didn't seem like it was 3 hours long. The acting was fine (for what it was), and the roles were believable -----> I felt empathy for the Na'vi, and despised the Colonel (Quaritch) and his soldiers.

Visuals: 12
Acting: 6
Story: 7

All in all, a solid film. 8.5 for me.

This pretty much states my position.

Visually stunning and a break-through in 3D movies. In fact, you could almost say that Avatar is single-handedly responsible for the wave of 3D movies that has come after it, yet still maintains the lead and the standard of the technique.

The acting and the storyline, though? Boringly predictable, or as some people have put it this is "Dances With Smurfs" without Kevin Costner in a sci-fi setting.

I have no desire to own the film, though I am glad that I saw it in the theater with full 3D.

It's a solid 6/10.

4/10 i dont know kinda bored me.

I like this movie A LOT when I first saw it. It kinda dragged when I went back a week later and saw it again.

When it came out on DVD and I bought it, it was like the first time I watched it.

It was a cinematic beauty, which is it's strongest quality. The acting was fairly good and the plot was fairly obvious.

I give it a 7.5/10

Funny thing about this movie, I was recently in Auckland, where they have our countries only giant IMAX screen, and on it was playing the Special Edition of Avatar. I thought, well Id seen it twice already, but how could I pass up seeing the SE version and on the IMAX as well. So my wife and I went, and I kinda thought such a long movie (especially one Id seen already) would really test me, but Ive got to say I Loved It, the entire experience was Amazing, and I Really enjoyed seeing this movie once again!

To me, the effects were out of this world, easily on par with what Star Wars must have been in 1977, and unlike many here, I Liked the acting, I felt real emotion from all of the characters, especially the Navi (oddly enough, who were CGI). Sure the story wasnt the most original, but so what, it was told Incredibly well, and done so in a world of wonder that never stopped leaving you with Awe. OK, its not a film you can watch every month (very few are), but easily on a yearly basis I should be able to count on Avatar here for a trip unlike most any other in cinema.

Going by what a few others here did:

Visuals - 12
Acting - 8
Story - 7

AVATAR - 9 / 10 (a movie with TONS of hype, that to me lived up to very nearly all of it)

8/10 for me.

Best movie ever (or of that year even), no. But still solid.

CURRENT HCR MEMBER RATING:

AVATAR - 6.78 / 10

(9 members rating)

Like everyone else, I found the visuals to be very well done. They did a great job to bring the audience into that world. It was grand in scope when called for, as well as cluttered and obscuring as needed. The 3D was very well executed as well. The performances were all fine, considering what they had to work with. The CGI performances were very well done, which can't be easy to pull off.

That's where my praise for the film ends. The Navi are all a bunch of anime characters who have been designed to play as sympathetic as possible. The corporate guy is a carbon copy of Burke from James Cameron's Aliens. The military commander is a caricature of a hard boiled leader. He and his men are all designed to be as easily hateable as possible, so the audience doesn't have to think too hard. They do all the horrible things that the army did on Earth in the past with native peoples, which is insulting. To say that such a travesty could so easily happen again without anyone in authority questioning it is insulting to both the military and the audience.

The story of two people from different cultures being thrown together while facing adversity is taken entirely from James Cameron's Titanic. In that film, the poor boy and the rich girl explore each others culture and learn from them. Then they go down to the hold of the ship and make love. In the next scene when they go on deck, the iceburg hits the ship and everything goes in the crapper.
In Avatar, the human boy and the blue girl explore each others culture and learn from them. Then they go down by the tree and make love. In the next scene when they wake up, the bulldozers hit the tree and everything goes in the crapper.

After that, well all know what's going to happen because they showed us the ending in all of the trailers (just like we all knew how Titanic was going to end because it's common knowledge). The Navi fight the humans, and since the humans are the bad guys we know they're going to lose. Of course this movie beat Titanic at the box office. It's the same story, but with guns and explosions, plus it's in 3D! How could it not beat Titanic?

The level of pandering to the lowest common denominator in this movie is staggering. It has zero rewatch value for me. The best reason to see it in the first place were the 3D visuals, and I'm not going to get that at home.
3/10

Avatar has suffered quite a backlash for being popular. People love to hate stuff that is popular, yes we can find ways to tear it apart if we want to, as we can with any movie, and as I do with most action movies. But if I am going to be completely honest I have to admit that I very much liked this film.

It had some goofy parts and some silly ideas but that added to it for me, Cameron completely committed to this world and this vision no matter how silly and I couldn't help but come along for the ride.

I didn't watch it in the theatre so the visuals had nothing to with it, what brought me into the story was the story. It was an epic fantasy tale filled with ridiculousness that was delivered to us with a straight face and with a lot of compassion for the characters on the screen. I actually cared about what happened to the silly blue people in their secret forrest, much like I didn't want others to find the Secret Garden and I wanted Peter Pan to defeat the pirates. I was charmed into suspending my disbelief and I am glad I was.

8.5 out of 10

Hated this movie and everything it stood for. The idea that effects can replace a plot completely... ugh... I actually do 3D modeling and animating as a hobby, so I totally appreciate the quality of the work. It's not the fault of the artists that they slaved away under the least clever direction in history. I also didn't like the fact that everything glowed (even freaking footprints). Felt really cheesy to me, and not the good kind of cheesy. The kind of cheesy that was like "This will impress the idiots. Just make everything shiny."

I felt like the whole thing was too dumbed down to even be a decent kids movie. If the effects weren't so high quality, this would feel like some preachy, one sided, educational cartoon on why Native Americans were perfect. Even He-Man had more sympathetic bad guys.

It disappoints me that this movie made so much money. It just furthers the idea that an absurd budget can replace writing and still be a hit.

3/10