Avatar

If you're going to spend more than a decade creating the most expensive film ever made, it had better be something special, right? Well, fortunately, James Cameron's Avatar is indeed an exceptional movie, one that delivers a truly stunning spectacle. Sure, the script and the acting, while fittingly serviceable, won't change Hollywood, but the pioneering precision-crafted visuals will. Released in traditional 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D, Avatar utilizes groundbreaking motion-capture techniques and stereoscopic 3D cameras that draw in the audience like never before. Setting viewers down on the lush fictional moon of Pandora, the beyond-lavish production follows disabled Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as his mind is channeled into a human/alien hybrid, one designed to interact with Pandora's towering blue Na'vi, a tribal race keenly attuned to their ecosystem. Given a new sense of physical freedom and paired with a fierce, beautiful Na'vi woman named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), Sully, unsurprisingly, goes native. While this angers his corporate and military sponsors, it sets the stage for both a charming romance and a full-scale global conflict. Embracing Pandora's alien environment, Cameron is admirably set on depicting its Day-Glo flora and fauna in detail, leaving his signature gritty machinations (think Aliens and T2) a distant second. This dedication to extraterrestrial naturalism eases open-minded audience members into becoming attached to Pandora, allowing them to look past occasional cheesy moments and focus on complete cinematic immersion in this remarkably rendered alien world. All but the extremely jaded and/or sci-fi averse will be thoroughly entertained--and most likely amazed.