Visually a treat, great escapist fantasy, message pounded in with a sledgehammer

Rating: 7/10 (20 May 2011)

First, a couple caveats: I did not see this in the theater, and I did not see this in 3-D.
That said, even in small screen format and even without 3-D, this is a visually impressive movie. It creates a world that looks believable and there is nothing that jars you when the movie transitions from obvious real photography with real sets and real people, to obvious animation with everything on the screen computer-generated. Considering the scope of this movie, that's very impressive.
Before going any further, I want to comment on some of the influences I saw in this movie. I haven't read anything about James Cameron's creative process in writing the movie, and I don't know what books he's read or movies he saw that influenced "Avatar." But this movie had elements that I saw that reminded me very strongly of Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" saga, as well as some of Robert Heinlein's works-- most notably "Starship Troopers." And visually, it really reminded me very strongly of Joss Whedon's "Titan A.E." animated movie in some of its appearance.
I don't know if these things went into the mix when Cameron made the movie. But the movie reminded me of them, and I think other people will see some of the resemblances. Whatever.
Once you get past the visual candy, the movie is fairly straightforward in its plot. We have a technologically superior culture moving in on a naturalistic aboriginal culture. The techies have found deposits of a super-valuable mineral on the planet, and they want to mine the minerals. The techie faction is represented by the corporate evil-doers, the profit motive, assisted by the military faction, which does the security and pushes the techie agenda without questioning the morality or ethics. Attached to the techies as a sort of concession to the sentient-being rights people is a unit headed by an anthropologist (Sigourney Weaver) who utilizes a consciousness-transfer technology to drop humans into the bodies (Avatars) of indigenous people (the Na'vi), ostensibly to study the natives and try to negotiate with them.
One of the humans used in the Avatar program is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a Marine who is a recent paraplegic and is a last-minute addition to the Avatar program after his twin brother is inconveniently killed. Through a series of fortuitous events, Sully is taken in by a Na'vi Clan, which undertakes to train him and initiate him into their culture.
From this point, the movie is predictable: the Na'vi have a culture with reverence for the environment and seeks a balance with nature, rather than a submission of nature. Sully slowly falls in love with both the culture and with a woman of the Na'vi people, Neytiri, who is his guide through initiation into their culture. Initially committed to the assistance of the goals and means of the Marines who forward the human techie agenda, he changes his viewpoint. He "goes native." This brings us to the inevitable climax, the battle of good vs. evil and technology vs. nature. The good guys win, at least this round of the battle, although it's a given that the human interests aren't going to let well enough alone. There HAS to be a sequel, don't you think? And that's my primary gripe with this movie. Leaving aside the way it breaks new ground on 3-D technology and the quality of the animation, it's a formulaic story: Ewoks vs. Storm Troopers, Indians vs. Evil Land-Stealing Settlers, Aztecs vs. Conquistadores. The techies and their military enforcers are bad, they refer to the locals as "monkeys" and other derogatory terms, and just want to rape the land and make money money money. And the indigenous peoples are gentle, have a strong religious culture that venerates nature and the land, and they do fun things like ride dragons and weird horse-like creatures. They eat meat, but when they kill anything, they say a benediction over the kill to release the soul. And they wear loincloths and the females cover their breasts so we don't get into any issues of nudity. What fun.
In the end, I think your feelings about this movie are going to depend on how much you like being pounded over the head with a sledgehammer to get the message that technology/capitalism are bad, respect for nature/living close to the land are good. While the movie does a fabulous job of giving you a whole new world to escape into, and that's wonderful, it doesn't capitalize on this by giving you a story that's original and a viewpoint that's nuanced or complex. And that is, in my opinion, a serious flaw.
Maybe Cameron is really representing how he feels, but it would be nice if he would trust his audience to be able to deal with complexities and contradictions and subtleties, rather than reducing everything to a nature-good, technology-bad morality play. Maybe in the sequel? Somehow, I doubt it.