People give this film waaaaay too much credit

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2009)

Anytime a movie this hyped comes out the natural reaction will always be a non-critical endorsement of its "awesomeness." Science fiction fanboys often lack the ability to separate excitement from any objective critique of movies that play to their sentimentality's. Don't get me wrong, this is a feel good and visually spectacular movie that has the viewer awestruck leaving the theater. However, this can be said about a July 4th fireworks display or a Las Vegas magic act; just because it's entertaining does not make it worthy of praise - just look at the news. It is necessary to take some time to reflect on the film for what it is - a film, and should be held up to the time-honored standards of all film criticisms.
To begin, I think it's worth noting that the main thrust of creativity in Avatar comes from solely the visual aspects - if you want to see it then the 3D format does make a difference. The plot has little creativity, it's mostly a splicing of Dances with Wolves, Aliens, and a little Fern Gully. This has led some to joke that the only original cast member was Sigourney Weaver. Sam Worthington plays the role of Kevin Costner while Giovanni Ribisi replaces Paul Reiser for the role of the corporate shill. Michelle Rodriguez even closely resembles the Latin stereotype of Private Vasquez from Aliens. Given these obvious parallels and recycling, we should be comparing this movie to Dances with Wolves and Cameron's Aliens and unfortunately Avatar just does not stack up. The messages of the movies are similar yet Avatar lacks the depth of Dances or even Aliens, instead choosing to hand feed and spell it out for the viewer and watering down complex issues of imperialism and corporate motives present in this movie's predecessors.
Furthermore, while Dances is comparably long, Avatar spends most of the film developing a world instead of a plot and focusing more on being visually appealing than attempting to challenge the viewer - although this might be a side-effect of making science fiction rather than historical fiction.
All in all the acting was fine, the action was fun, but these can be found in most films. Would I recommend it? Yes, I enjoyed it, but I also enjoyed Grandma's Boy and that's hardly deserving of the top 50 movies of all time. And on a side note: do not watch Grandma's Boy before this film or else you won't be able to take Joel Moore's character seriously.
And on one last note, further enforcing this notion of how watered down this film is are the constant commercial tie-ins that have been littering TV to promote it. The film's message seems inherently at odd with McDonald's actions as both a corporation exploiting indigenous populations and in terms of the products they sell.
I highly advise people to examine this film critically and as a film rather than a fireworks show.