:-(

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2009)

Sigh. Where to begin. This movie - the story I mean - had enormous problems right from the start. Jake's brother gets killed for "the paper in his wallet"? What, paper money in 2154?? And where exactly did he get killed? On Pandora? A small corporate-military-scientific installation? Crawling with common thieves/murderers? Come on!
And it goes on from there. All sorts of questions relating to the events and characters are never explained. What on Earth is unobtainium (an unoriginal term) used for, since it's so expensive? No explanation. The characters are total cardboards, incapable of mustering any audience identification or sympathy, with no cool lines, no good acting performances (except Zöe Saldana's), no nothing. The story is predictable and made up of clichés. I liked the "Gaia plug-in" thing they had, but having all the animals rise to the occasion at the end was just too Disney. The greatest plot hole was that the military could just have nuked the site instead of using a conventional assault. When they get back there next time, they'll probably do exactly that. So no proper closure, nor believable behavior, given the available technology.
There were some cool scenes, sure. But without a good story and good characters and capable actors, cool action is utterly meaningless. This was a pretty package with no substance, just what you expect from average, mainstream Hollywood fare, made by a director who's compromised his integrity for money. The script sounded like Cameron wrote it when he was twelve, way waaay before getting around to mature and masterful work like Aliens and Abyss.
This is the kind of movie that, because it contains something new (the CGI), will be a big hit now, but in just a few years it will be outdone by other movies and quickly look dated, and the cheesy story will relegate it to history's dung heap, deservedly forgotten.
I had hoped this would be the SF movie of the decade. As it is, it's unintelligent schlock which will probably be toe-cringing to sit through a second time. What a freaking shame. 2009 only had four really good SF movies: District 9, Star Trek, Surrogates and Battle for Terra (which may have been made in 2007, but was released in 2009 - it is a much better version of Avatar than Avatar). Avatar certainly doesn't make my top-250 - nowhere near.
6 out of 10.