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Given this is on everyone's lips I feel I should have lots to say on this but I have substantially less but here goes.

It is literally jaw dropping. The world they have created is utterly beautiful- particularly in the night scenes. The floating mountains, tree cities, insane creatures and luminescent night forest are so beautifully realised that you just want to give them rounds of applause at points. There are more shots of true unnatural beauty in that film then anything I've seen before. It has been lovingly crafted and visualised and the people who did it cannot get enough awards. They legitimise making the film and they make me recommend it to everyone.

I know a lot of people who are unkeen to see it. Because it's a stupid plot with evil capitalist, trigger happy marines, nice scientists and natives at one with nature who need a white guy to lead them to salvation. Mostly fair but (with the partial exception to the Dances with Wolves syndrome which I'll come back to) totally irrelevant. The vistas in Hidden are pretty uninspiring. The make-up in United 93 doesn't do it for me. The special effects in Slumdog Millionaire are average. It doesn't matter because it's not what those films are about. Likewise dialogue and to a certain extent plot.

I actually think both are serviceable. It's undeniably a bit trite all this at one with nature business when we're talking about a state of the art, budget blowing film. But it's not a terrible message and it wears it fairly lightly. It would much rather show you a cool plant in the forest or have a chase with 100 stone hammerhead rhinoceros then preach about anything. The last act drags a bit with too much fighting (but the fact that I often find battle sequences boring I'm fairly sure puts me in a minority) but the second act is just the most wonderful adventure. Unlike King Kong which definitely felt like it clearly had two monsters too many, I didn't really want to leave the second act.

Also I'd like to say how absolutely seamless it worked with humans. That was what really struck me. You really couldn't tell they were acting up against a blue screen- the two worlds meshed so much more seamlessly then anything I've seen before. I don't know if that was an IMAX effect (and if you're going to see it- see it in IMAX) but it really worked.

So yes, worth every penny. It doesn't want to make you think- it wants to make you go wow. And boy did it.

On the Dances with Wolves syndrome- it's legitimate. But I think it's unrealistic to expect audiences to be up for a story where humans are the bad guys full stop. Why it has to be a white guy while all the Na'avi are played by 'actors of colour' is a different question. I reckon the world's ready for whites to be the bad guys full stop. In the movies.