Avatar is like painting a pile of feces with pretty colors

Rating: 3/10 (26 December 2009)

This movie barely manages to save itself from a rating of 1 by sheer merit of it's astounding visuals. To address this issue, I will quickly say that this movie contains some of the most beautiful visuals I've ever seen. Although I wouldn't recommend watching it in 3-D; I did and all I got was a headache.
That said, I am now left to the task of attempting to explain all of the ways this movie utterly fails. I won't bother spoiling anything, because this movie is the most predictable film I've seen in years. The plot rips off at least a dozen other (better) movies, while endeavoring to add nothing of it's own. I won't go into much detail as that would spoil the alleged plot of this festering abomination, but suffice to say the story has been told, and it's been told better.
Perhaps the worst part of this movie comes from what I call it's "skin-deep goodness". That is to say, from the outside and with only a cursory glance at the plot, it seems to be a decent movie, in my opinion, creating the section of the population that claim it to be the best movie of the year. However, the plot doesn't hold up under scrutiny, instead collapsing in on itself, and ultimately falling short.
My recommendation: use the money to watch Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas followed by the Matrix trilogy, you'll get the same effect.
{If you disagree, drop me an e-mail(found next to my user name) and let me know why. I'd love to discuss it with you}