Avatar

Avatar is the best selling and most hyped film of all time.

So....does it merit all the hype?

Put simply....NO.

The big selling point is the 3D special effects. Yes, it looks good, but when you've already seen a 3D film, and by the time you've sat through the first 30 minutes of this one, the novelty rather wears off as you quickly get used to it.

The plot is a basic and serviceable modern sci-fi story about peaceful aliens living an idyllic life on their home world, only to find themselves ruthlessly exploited by the evil earth men. As happens in all good morality stories, one of the exploiters falls in love with a native and drives his Avatar to lead his new comrades in a successful revolt. It is of course a parable about the evils of American imperialism as typified by the McDonald's and Starbucks of this world, with a soupçon of the new religion of global warming thrown in for good measure. If you've never seen a story like this before then it could be a good experience for you - but for my money it's been done rather better a number of times before on "Star Trek: Voyager" and I just found it commonplace.

Needless to say, there's very little in the way of character development, although the evil colonel is made to strongly resemble the "Anti Christ" George W Bush, so no surprises there!

By all means go and see it if you are curious about 3D, but otherwise there are far better things to spend your hard earned wages on in these days of austerity.