Impressive visuals, but that's about it.

Rating: 5/10 (4 February 2010)

I'll give James Cameron credit, Avatar is visually spectacular. But that's all this movie has going for it. It's too long, the characters are one dimensional, the plot is predicable, and said plot has gaping holes in it.
This movie could easily have been forty minutes shorter. It dragged often.
The characters were all stereotypes, and not one of them ever acted against his stereotype. I was never surprised by any of them.
The plot was a string of clichés and contrivances. Some of them were visually surprising, but that was it. Otherwise I was practically able to check them off as they turned up.
As for plot holes, I'll mention three: 1)Terraforming three Earthlike planets and bioengineering life to populate them with would be trivial compared to traveling to another star. 2)Ever hear of shaft and drift mining? Go in underneath the native village and they'll never know you're there. 3)Are you capable of interstellar travel and have a surface target to wipe out? Just drop a rock on it from orbit. It's called a kinetic strike.