From a 50+ perspective: Thumbs Up

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2010)

With over 1,500 reviews already posted I feel like this is on the order of a drop in the ocean, but here goes:
Back in the summer of 1977 we were driving around one evening and happened to see a marquee for a movie called Star Wars. Prior to seeing that marquee we had not heard a single thing about the film, but having nothing better to do that night, we decided what the heck - we'd give it a shot. When we left the theater that evening I knew I had just seen a very special film - the special effects represented a quantum leap ahead from anything previously brought to the screen and I felt certain that we had just turned a page in movie making.
Tonight I had the same feeling leaving Avatar. The crafting of the film is simply outstanding and I think it will become a milestone similar to Star Wars. We will return to see it again in 3D, as tonight's viewing was a 2D showing.
Given that high praise, why did we not rate it higher? In one word: plot. It is beyond sad that a film with such superb special effects and with so much thought and imagination being poured into the creation of an alien world and all the fanciful and fantastic critters inhabiting that world we couldn't have been offered some sort of plot that hasn't already been flogged to death by a gazillion other films. Yes, I will admit that the cautionary tale represented here (our universal human tendency to justify atrocity towards others by convincing ourselves that they are less than human) cannot be told often enough, but is it too much to hope that a movie so groundbreaking in so many ways might at least try to surprise us with a groundbreaking plot line? I guess it is.
Even so, the beauty and imagination (other than plot) here is overwhelming - and more than enough to recommend the film. I'm sort of looking forward to seeing the books on the biology, zoology and geography of Pandora. If they're not out yet I'm sure they will be soon.
One last note: even if we were tempted to rate this film a ten, it would have lost at least a point for two particularly irritating things: (1) Unobtainium. This is something straight out of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (remember Upsidaisium?) In a cartoon series that's all about satire, bad puns and silliness it's a laugh. In a movie that wants you to take anything it has to say even the least bit seriously, it's an insult. The use of it here hints that the scriptwriter may not hold his audience in very high regard. (2) The impossibly buff, impossibly slender design of the Navi, which we think could only derive from the unhealthy and unattainable obsessions of contemporary American culture. We'll toss a quarter of a point back in as a thank you for at least not equipping the Navi females with humongous breasts.