Avatar is stunning visually and emotionally rewarding. It mixes magic, myth and modern mayhem with action and beauty into a spectacle - the kind of movie studios are not making. This film is more like big family pictures of the past than the action pics of the last few years. Take the whole family except for the very young.
This smart gangster movie creates a modern version of a time in America when society was struggling with how to contain the rampant atrocities of criminals and the growth of crime syndicates. Its gritty, tense, unrelenting picture of the descent of John Dillinger and the creation of the FBI is mostly unromanticized and regards the criminals and lawmen with equal clarity. John and his love story are glamorized though his crimes are not. Depp and Bale depict men in the grips of bigger forces than they can control who play the game to it's inevitable end. I highly recommend this film. It belongs in a category of films saying "crime doesn't pay."