Undeniably beautiful, but far from Cameron's best film

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2009)

James Cameron has directed some films that I really loved: Terminators 1 & 2, Titanic, True Lies – sadly, Avatar isn't quite as good as any of those, though definitely not bad.
Much of the hype seems to be about the "revolutionary" visuals: and it's true, the CGI in this movie is absolutely fantastic. Pandora's landscapes are beautiful and the alien zoology is well designed and interesting: it's a visual feast, and you find yourself not thinking about the fact that it's CGI. To be honest, though, I'm not sure I'd call it significantly more impressive than other CGI I've seen. James Horner does another good job with the soundtrack, which gave me goosebumps at some points, such as the first flying scenes and the final battle scene.
Avatar's main weakness is its writing. I'm personally not bothered by the general plot line's similarity to such films as Dances With Wolves: I was more bothered by the fact that the script keeps throwing in various plot points that are very obviously going to be relevant later, so it's easy to predict what will happen.
That said, it's not all bad: the story may be predictable, but it's never actually boring – there's always something going on to maintain your interest. And while the villains are pretty cliché and one-dimensional, the human and Na'vi protagonists, and the relationships between them, are quite engaging. There's not much to say about the acting, except that Sam Worthington's accent seems to slip from time to time.
All in all, the visuals are definitely the best thing about Avatar: aside from that, it's nothing special, but worth a look overall.