In this section, we highlighted reviews along with awards won and nominations for Avatar

T-Meter Critics:
Avg. Rating:
Reviews Counted:
Fresh:
Rotten:

82%
7.4/10
260
213
47

EmpireOnline.com

10

Filmstalker.co.uk

10

Maxim.co.uk

10

Sun Times.com (Roger Ebert)

10

TotalFilm.com

10

RollingStone.com

09

CinemaSpy.com

09

ComingSoon.net

09

IGN.com

09

EdmontonSun.com

08

Hollywood.com

08

RealMovieNews.com

08

SlashFilm.com

08

TimesOnline

08

TheIndependent

08

BoxOffice.com

07

Tikitula.com

07

DenofGeek.com

06

Guardian.co.uk

04

AMZ's Blue Crystal Award
AMZ Visitors give Avatar an online award

AMZ conducted a poll from February to March 2010 asking AMZ visitors to vote for their favorite Avatar Scene. It was a tight race between four key scenes, but the one that edged out . . .

'THE IKRAN TAMING SCENE.'

From the launch of the poll, this scene and 'The Gathering of the Clans' took turns in the lead. Also, 'Neytiri holding Jake's human body' and 'Jake and Neytiri's romantic flight' remained closely behind throughout the voting process.

Of course this is just an online award and there is no presentation of the award in place, but nevertheless, AMZ visitors got to have their say in selecting Avatar's Favorite Scene.


Poll Results: (1,870 total votes)

Scene - Votes

THE IKRAN TAMING SCENE - 129 (winner)

Gathering of the Na'vi clans - 124

Neytiri holding Jake's human body - 123

Jake and Neytiri's romantic flight - 119

The Destruction of Home Tree - 96

Jake/Toruk's arrival at Na'vi village - 78

Neytiri drinking from a leaf - 68

Final battle between Jake and Quaritch - 61

Eywa's land/air creatures join battle - 54

Neyitiri/Thanator vs. Quaritch/AMP suit - 51

Jake and the seeds of the sacred tree - 49

Thanator chases Jake - 46

Jake's first flight - 45

Jake's attack on Quaritch's Dragon ship - 45

Tsu'tey takes on soldiers in shuttle - 44

Navi/military armada air battle - 43

Jake's first minutes in his avatar - 43

Neytiri's rage over Jake's confession - 41

Neytiri reacting to her father's death - 37

End scene at Tree of Souls - 37

The escape from Toruk - 32

Jake/Norm see Floating Mountains - 31

You're not in Kansas anymore speech - 31

Quaritch jettisons from flaming ship - 29

Na'vi reaction to the fall of the Hometree - 29

Neytiri and Jake first meet - 29

Fan Lizards light the jungle night - 27

Jake's last video log - 27

Tree of Souls ritual, trying to save Grace - 27

Jake's request to Eywa - 27

Neytiri reacting to
sacred tree destruction - 26

The burning Direhorse - 25

Mo'at's plea to Jake for help - 22

Neytiri takes on the viperwolves - 20


Other scenes received 16 votes or less for the remaining 155 votes.

WeAreMovieGeeks.com's
Top Ten Movies of 2009
Avatar ranked #6
Excerpt: wearemoviegeeks.com

It may have been impossible for James Cameron�s massively expensive epic to live up to the ridiculous hype, but it came pretty close. Featuring some of the best CG work in cinema to date and an incredible 3D experience, Avatar manages to be greatly entertaining for its 2.5 hour runtime.

Now let�s just hope the sequel doesn�t take another 12 years. Click on the source link for their complete top ten list.

Flixster Users Pick 'Avatar' as 2009's Best
Audiences are responding in a big way
to the 20th Century Fox release
By BoxOffice Staff | Excerpt: boxoffice.com

James Cameron's sci-fi extravaganza boasts an incredible 92 percent approval rating on Flixster, which puts it slightly ahead of Star Trek's 91 percent. The Web site tallied over 55 million user ratings for 2009 releases. �It may be true that you can�t please everybody, but Avatar comes about as close as you can get,� says Steve Polsky, president and COO of Flixster.

The top 10 list:

1. Avatar (92% positive)
2. Star Trek (91%)
3. The Blind Side (90%)
4. Up in the Air (88%)
5. Inglourious Basterds (87%)
6. The Hangover (87%)
7. Zombieland (87%)
8. UP (86%)
9. Michael Jackson�s This Is It (85%)
10. Taken and Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself (tie, 83%)

AMZ POLL (closed):

"Rate Avatar the Movie on a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best)"

Total Votes: 1,635

Rating

Votes

Prcntg.

10
9
8
7

1,405
143
46
17

85.9%
8.7%
2.8%
1.0%

The remaining 1.4% rated it 6 or less.

Empire Rates Avatar 5 out of 5 Stars
By Chris Hewitt | Excerpt: empireonline.com

Avatar is unequivocally, completely, 100% the film that has been percolating in James Cameron�s head for the last fourteen years. It is not, in all probability, the film that you had in yours when you first heard that the man who directed Aliens and The Terminator was returning to sci-fi with a movie so ambitious that he had to build the technology to make it happen.

If you can let go of your version and embrace Cameron�s � if you�re not, in other words, one of those splenetic internet fanboy types who�ve apparently made their minds up about Avatar before seeing it � then Avatar is a hugely rewarding experience: rich, soulful and exciting in the way that only comes from seeing a master artist at work.

ComingSoon.net Rates Avatar 9 out of 10!
By Scott Chitwood | Excerpt: comingsoon.net

What Worked:

First and foremost, the world of Pandora is absolutely amazing. Every plant, animal, and environment is incredibly imaginative. James Cameron takes the familiar and puts a new spin on it to create an incredible, yet entirely realistic feeling world.

What Didn't Work:

As far as what didn't work goes, an easy thing to point at is the overall story. This is, essentially, "Dances with Wolves" set on an alien planet. But you know what? This is a story that has been told many, many times. Look at anything from "A Man Called Horse" to the biblical story of Moses. The story of men identifying with another people and aiding them in a fight for survival is thousands of years old.

FirstShowing.net Avatar Review
'Avatar is Truly Indistinguishable from Magic'
By Brandon Lee Tenney | Excerpt: firstshowing.net

"They don't make movies like this anymore." A friend of mine said that to me before the lights dimmed, before the reason we were all there in that theatre began. After Avatar arrives in theaters, quotes like the one above take on new significance.

No longer can those words be said for the sole sake of irony. Or in jest. They may not make movies like this, like Avatar, often enough, but because of James Cameron � because of the ten or so years he built Avatar with, because of his many, many years of experience he used as its foundation � they do, indeed, make movies like this. And its title is Avatar. A film whose vision was so grand upon conception, an undertaking so massive, that to wait was the only option.

Rolling Stone Avatar Review:
3.5 out of 4 Stars
By Peter Travers | Excerpt: rollingstone.com
(Direct link no longer available)

Oscar can relax. The epic crowd-pleaser the Academy lusted for is here, the one to show that the geezer voters are hip to what the kids want (3-D IMAX) and what the industry needs (the kind of wowser you'll pay to see on a big screen).

James Cameron's tone-deaf but thunderously exciting Avatar, costing a record $300 million, is just the thing to pump box-office blood into Oscar's idiotically expanded Best Picture category (10 nominees instead of the usual five). Nevermind my preference for the life-sized likes of Precious, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air and An Education. They look puny next to the computerized giants at play in the fields of Lord Cameron.

Roger Ebert Rates Avatar 4 out of 4!
By Roger Ebert | Excerpt: rogerebert.com.

Watching "Avatar," I felt sort of the same as when I saw "Star Wars" in 1977. That was another movie I walked into with uncertain expectations. James Cameron's film has been the subject of relentlessly dubious advance buzz, just as his "Titanic" was.

Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely.

"Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message. It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings.

THR Avatar Review
Bottom Line: A titanic entertainment
-- movie magic is back!
By Kirk Honeycutt | Excerpt: hollywoodreporter.com

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world. As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is "Avatar." And he did it almost from scratch.

After writing this story many years ago, he discovered that the technology he needed to make it happen did not exist. So, he went out and created it in collaboration with the best effects minds in the business. This is motion capture brought to a new high where every detail of the actors' performances gets preserved in the final CG character as they appear on the screen.

Corliss Appraises Avatar:
Cameron's World of Wonder
By Richard Corliss | Excerpt: time.com

The planet Pandora that Cameron and his army of artist-technicians have created � at a budget believed to be in excess of $300 million � is a wonder world of flora and fauna: a rainforest (where it never rains) of gigantic trees and phosphorescent plants.

Living among these creatures is Pandora's humanish tribe, the Na'vi: a lean, 10-ft.-tall, blue-striped people with green eyes, or what mankind might have been if it had evolved in harmony with, not opposition to, the edenic environment that gave rise to its birth. For me to say that Avatar is better than Titanic is not the highest possible praise. I was no ardent fan of Cameron's grafting of a poor-boy/rich-girl love story tacked onto the true saga of that doomed ship which set sail from Southampton back in 1912.

Review from Variety
By Todd McCarthy | Excerpt: variety.com

The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in "Avatar," and it's very much a place worth visiting.

The most expensive and technically ambitious film ever made, James Cameron's long-gestating epic pitting Earthly despoilers against a forest-dwelling alien race delivers breathtaking sights, narrative excitement and an overarching anti-imperialist, back-to-nature theme that will play very well around the world, and yet is rather ironic coming from such a technology-driven picture.

Twelve years after "Titanic," which still stands as the all-time B.O. champ, Cameron delivers again with a film of universal appeal that just about everyone who ever goes to the movies will need to see.

MTV's Top Nine Movie Moments Of 2009
An Avatar movie moment makes their list. Which one?
By Josh Wigler | Excerpt: mtv.com

Even as moviegoers look ahead towards 2010, it cannot be denied that 2009 was a banner year for blockbuster cinema. Hot off the heels of the domestic box office's single most lucrative weekend ever, there is no question that both Hollywood and the indie scene alike had their best game-faces on this year, resulting in a science-fiction renaissance through the likes of "District 9" as well as more intimate (though no less dangerous) affairs as seen in "The Hurt Locker."

Avatar

Jake's free sprint from the medical lab to the open fields of Pandora wasn't just his cathartic return to upward mobility � it was also Cameron's way of telling the naysayers, "I told you so."

Top Ten Movies of 2009
Avatar: "More than anyone ever believed it would be"
By Tony Daniel | Excerpt: times-herald.com

Newnan's Tony Daniel, a movie enthusiast and actor who has appeared in performances with Newnan Community Theatre Company, shares his Top Ten Movies of 2009. "There is no way to put these in any numerical order, from the greatest to the near great. These are offered, therefore, as the ten I would stash away as the perfect examples of filmmaking to show the distinctive force behind this year's box office totals," Daniel said.

There is going to be a day when I finally stop questioning James Cameron's ability. Every time I see one of his films, I think to myself, "Well, that's the top of the mark. He'll never top that." And every time, I am wrong. Much has been made of the idea that Avatar's plot is a spin on every Western that dared to suggest that the "Indians" might have had a legitimate gripe with the "white man."