A Sometimes Fun but Mostly Mindless Action Epic.

Rating: 5/10 (2 May 2010)

Jake Sully joins a military operation on the foreign planet Pandora after his twin, who was working on the project, dies. The military is attempting to move the natives off their land so they can colonize and use the land for their own purposes. Jake must use a computer program that allows him to control the body of one of these aliens so he can infiltrate their culture and coerce them to move their homes.
I am AMAZED at how much critical acclaim Avatar is receiving. Aside from the visuals, which are at times stunning, this is one of the most predictable and clichéd big budget movies I have seen in a long while. Every, and I mean every little twist and turn of the plot you can see coming a MILE away.
-There's one flying thing that no one has ever ridden before: I wonder if that's going to pay off at all
-Jake prays to the "tree gods" for help in the fight: I wonder if their going to help in someway, no they'll probably end the movie with the natives losing and the military slaughtering all of them
-They are trying to save Sigourney Weaver by putting her soul into her Avatar: I wonder if their going to use that later to create one the cheesiest everybody wins happy endings ever
Worse than the obvious plot points though, would have to be the ridiculously, almost comically one dimensional characters. Let's see they got the everyman, the evil heartless military commander, the non caring rich businessman, the sassy cool female character (several), the nerdy uncool friend, and probably a few more I'm forgetting.
I was also very annoyed that it perpetuated the conceited sentiments of movies like The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves. A white American human walks into an alien culture and in five minutes he's "Aw Shucked" his way into becoming the most important being of their species. One day he joins the culture, the next day he is giving speeches to them and receiving help from a god that hasn't answered their prayers up to this point. The movie portrays it as if without the help of lovable old Jake Sully their culture would have been wiped out.
I also wasn't blown away by the 3D. Yeah, it was far superior to any 3D that has been available up to this point, but SO WHAT. It was cool to look at for the first 15 minutes or so and then I wanted a better movie to watch.
Avatar isn't completely devoid of charm however. Most of the action scenes are exciting and well designed as far as that goes, and it has a fairly clever if extremely derivative story.