Entertaining, but won't hold up over time

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2010)

Avatar tells the story of a man who is paralyzed from the waist down, and through controlling an alien body with his mind, gets more and more absorbed into the alien culture, their respect for the world around them, and their fight against encroachment by humans.
For someone who typically dislikes movies which try to walk the line between mindless blockbuster and subtle storytelling, Avatar exceeds expectations. There was a ridiculous amount of hype for a movie which appeared to have graphics which were nothing new, and a silly story. Well, the graphics are better than expected. The story is not told in an especially compelling way, due to the blockbuster style where everything is just as it seems and the plot flows in a straight line. However, the world of Pandora is quite immersive, especially in 3D, so the graphics make this movie. While the effects, especially of alien characters and animals, still do not quite look like they were filmed, the trees and rocks are very convincing. The 3D interfaces that the humans use for their computers are slick, the ships look real, and the mystical glowing alien plants and insects are cool.
The live-action 3D is very engaging for now, although a little glitchy. Most likely we will look back on this movie in the future and wince, after the technique is improved. For example, sometimes the side of an actor's face has a strong highlight as seen by one camera, but not by the other, which produces a disorienting effect when one of the viewer's eyes sees the highlight but not the other.
As for the story and message, it is a rather standard one of not messing with nature and the indigenous people, which honestly distracts from the expected brainless blockbuster action, romance, and coming of age story. Many of the serious things in this movie were done better in Mononoke-hime. The parts where it is a blockbuster work well enough despite somewhat uninspired action, and it probably would have been better if it had stayed fun and dumb. All in all, worth watching, but by a slim margin.