"Avatar"

Let's get this out of the way first: the film is serviceable. Opinions of the movie range from "it was very very good" to "it was pretty, but vacant." And both ends of that spectrum are defensible. Indefensible is the position that it's one of the best films of all time OR that it's one of the worst.

The fact is, if you strip away the crazy awesome technology behind it, the really beautiful world it portrays, and how its sort of overall insanely well-made, you're left with a James Cameron story. You're left with a Big Story told with character archetypes that flirts with social commentary and environmentalism (though "flirts with" is maybe less accurate than "almost clubs and drags back to it's cave"). In short, without the whole visual side, it's a squeaky clean machine of a movie, with no visible seams or giant flaws.

BUT then there's the visual side, which, I don't have to tell you, is beautiful and really impressive technologically.

SO the big question is, for you, as a viewer, does the visual bravado and prowess of the film outweigh the clean but boring structure? My answer is yes, enough so to make this a recommendable film, one that I will remember and want to see again in the future. But the other answer is also defensible, that movies are supposed to tell interesting stories, and this doesn't, so it's not great.

Certainly not a best picture, though.