See it for the cutting edge animation that looks more realistic than anything ever has.

Rating: Null/10 (11 May 2010)

James Cameron has done it again. He surely knows how to make a movie that captures the fancy of viewers of all ages and from all walks of life. While the actual story is good, its only novelty is that it is based on the distant planet Pandora, and visitors must be put into a cryo-cooled state for the long journey, then awakened upon arrival. Other than that it is a standard story of peoples from different backgrounds with an unlikely love story interwoven. Think Pilgrims and Natives, John Smith and Pocohontas, Romeo and Juliet.
The "hook" in this movie is the creation of the hybrid Avatar, which has both Earthling DNA and Pandorian DNA, so the resulting being, grown in large pods that simulate development in a womb, emerges fully grown, and is very tall and blue. But this Avatar can't function on its own, it must be controlled by its Earthling, the one whose DNA was used. The Earthling enters a special compartment, and via special electrodes is able to see through the Avatar's eyes, speak through it, run, fight, and everything else through it. But when the Earthling is disconnected the Avatar falls into a deep sleep and remains that way until the Earthling activates it again. This can be tricky!
So why are they doing all this? One, to study the Pandorian race, whose atmosphere will not support Earthling life without a special breather. So the Avatar solves that problem. But there is also a rare metal, Unobtanium (I chuckled at their choice of that name!), which is desperately needed on Earth, but the richest deposits are in the ground under and around the Tree of Life where the Pandorians have made their main home. The peace-loving scientists want to gain Pandorian cooperation to have them move, but their religious connections make that unlikely. The competing group are military and their motto is, if they won't move peacefully then lest blast them out of there, let's incinerate them.
The main character is a crippled man, Sam Worthington as Jake Sully. His identical twin brother was to control the Avatar Jake, but unfortunately was killed so Jake, having the same DNa, made him a match. But he had missed the special training. His love interest is the Pandorian, Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. Sigourney Weaver is the site scientific leader, Dr. Grace Augustine, and she has her own Avatar.
The militant leader is Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch. And the commercial leader, pushing for something to be done is Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge.
The animation is superb, the motion-capture technology, which was NOT part of the DVD extras, must have been exotic to enable them to make such realistic looking characters. You really forget you are looking at animation. I didn't care for the extreme fighting and military action in the last act, but overall a very good movie.
SPOILERS: It looked like the militant Earthlings were going to be successful in destroying the Pandorians and their society. But Jake, getting to know them, turned his talents to help the Pandorians who ultimately prevailed. Then, at the end, a way was found where Jake would fully inhabit his Avatar, and the old Earthling Jake would die. he ended up as a Pandorian himself.