James Cameron has translated a beautiful vision into a film that transports you to another place and time. The 3D effects were outstanding, and not used to "Wow" the audience, but rather to make the avatar world seem more real. The story line is not particularly ingenious or original. The strength of this film is in the film-makers art. And while it is easy to ignore the actors in a film like this, I think they did a great job. There is always a tendency in sci-fi and fantasy films to make the characters into caricatures, with the heros being too noble and the bad guys being rank villians. The cast of Avatar manged to stay "human", even when they looked decidedly non-human.