Like most of the civilized world, I saw Avatar over the Christmas holiday. Unlike most of the civilized world, I was pretty disappointed with the whole experience.
Let me just get my biases out of the way: I'm not a huge James Cameron fan. I think he's a largely overrated, under talented filmmaker. The Terminator films (by which I mean, and mean only, the first and second ones) are solid. Aliens is very good. And I'm eagerly awaiting a Pirahna 2 special edition 4 disc DVD box set. But I have no patience for True Lies, The Abyss or Titanic. I didn't even want to see Titanic. Someone made me. His films look good, but his stories are contrived, bland and predictable.
Avatar is no expection. Visually, this film is stunning. The alien world Cameron (and, I guess, a bunch of pasty skinned nerds at computers) creates looks amazing. And if you're going to see this, you should see it in 3D to get the full effect. But the story is so paint-by-numbers that even the kids in the audience could tell you what's going to happen.
Cameron has stated that he's spent nine years developing the technology to make this project work. You'd think in those nine years, he'd have worked on the plot and character development a little bit.