Cameron is a MUCH better director when he has a small budget

Rating: 1/10 (8 January 2013)

The second James Cameron film where I knew the ending within the first two minutes of the opening credits.
This movie has zero character development, which should not have been hard to produce in a plot that includes interaction with an alien species for the first time, and falling in love with an alien.
The bad guys were predictably bad, from beginning to end. Cameron's love of technology - which in the real world has incredibly harmed the ecology - is somehow presented as symbiotic with ecology. The female aliens all wear native dress that looks - miracle of miracles! - like L.A. sex chic, complete with nipple slips. The vision Cameron presents in _Avatar_ seems a better fit for a 13-year-old boy than a grown man, and the plot allows no depth of feeling or thought.
But the worst part of this film is the overuse of cgi coupled with 3D. I would much rather watch the first _Terminator_ then either _Avatar_ or _Titanic_, because _Terminator_ assumes I can think and feel. Whenever a director counts on grand scale to astound the viewer, there is an assumption that the viewer cannot appreciate subtlety or grace. For example, _The Last Emperor_ uses fantastic cinematography, as does _The Tree of Life_, but without assuming I have a childish appreciation of visual scale.
This movie will always be remembered for its visual effects - but I vastly prefer good films, not visual effects.