Avatar (2009)

Academy Awards, USA
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
2010	Won	Oscar	Best Achievement in Art Direction Rick Carter (production designer) Robert Stromberg (production designer) Kim Sinclair (set decorator)
			Best Achievement in Cinematography Mauro Fiore
			Best Achievement in Visual Effects Joe Letteri Stephen Rosenbaum Richard Baneham Andrew R. Jones
	Nominated	Oscar	Best Achievement in Directing James Cameron
			Best Achievement in Film Editing Stephen E. Rivkin John Refoua James Cameron
			Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score James Horner
			Best Achievement in Sound Editing Christopher Boyes Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
			Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Christopher Boyes Gary Summers Andy Nelson Tony Johnson
			Best Motion Picture of the Year James Cameron Jon Landau

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by James Cameron
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray 3D, Fox)

A handicapped Marine volunteers for duty on the planet Pandora. He becomes the "driver" of an alien "avatar" which he controls remotely with his mind. The only drawback is that when he falls asleep as the alien avatar he wakes up in his "real" body. How all this works is not adequately explained, so it's best just to accept it. Pandora has a large supply of a valuable mineral, but the indigenous life is in the way of getting it. Macho military types plan to take it by force by destroying their habitat. The driver/avatar is sent on a mission to become one of the native people. For awhile he happily supplies critical information for the impending attack like a good Marine. However, when he falls in love with one of the natives his allegiance changes. It all leads to a long, drawn out Big Action Finale between the military and the native people. The plot is rather formulaic and the characters, especially the military, are too often stereotypes. Nonetheless, even at 3 hours I was never bored, just try not to think too much.