A masterpiece ? Hardly.

Rating: 4/10 (26 January 2010)

Being a sci-fi fan I really wanted to like this one, but came out of theater with mixed feelings. Yes, it has great visual effects and 3-d is pretty nice for the first hour or so. But there is very little behind this eye candy. Simplistic, unoriginal story that one can pretty much can guess after first 10-15 minutes, LOTS of clichés, mediocre actor's performance. Once the dust settles and 3D movies become more mainstream, I really can't see this movie stand the test of time.
I am also pretty surprised that in era of modern computer games, people find themselves "blown away" by visual effects. Games like "Crysis" or "Mass Effect" can pretty much match Avatar visuals while providing you with much more entertaining level of interactivity (and yes, you can play them in 3D). This "movie" does feel a lot more like a computer game rather than a movie, somebody please tell EA that they are sitting on a gold mine :).
Disclaimers: 1. No, I am not a hard-core gamer, I am a software engineer (non-game related). 2. I do have a dedicated Home Theater with 130" screen, so I it is not easy to impress me with "big screen" effect. YMMV :)