I found
Avatar reasonably engaging, certainly not "stupid". Maybe I'm just reading (somehow?) into depths that weren't there, but I was struck with quite a few subtlties, myself. I certainly don't claim it was
amazingly intellectual or
particularly complex- but it isn't meant to be, and nor is it particularly unsubtle either. It was an average story. Straightforward at times, of course, but at others relatively complex. A few plot points and ideas had me thinking them over afterwards, and coming to a few pleasing conclusions about the film's more subtle points. Maybe that subtlty was unintentional- maybe I'm being too nice and all these ideas originate in my analysis only, but I find that unlikely.
And here's the thing; people often seem to need the unsubtle approach. Remember the scene where Neytiri watches Sully and those dandelion-seed thingies show up, and she looks shocked? People in the audience around me were saying "huh?" and "I don't get it". I thought it was obvious; evidently these seed thingies have significance in her culture and thus this is seen as a "sign" or whatever- details are unimportant, because the
overall context is clear. Except all these people in the audience seemed to want details; they seemingly needed everything explained carefully and directly to them, because otherwise they couldn't understand. They needed all the pieces handed to them. So at later points when the film
did get a little direct and straightforward, I forgave it. The audience had shown me already why films have to do that.
While the story was unoriginal, I must disagree with any statements that it was "Na'vi=good", "human=bad". Not at all. It was human behaviour and human thinking that saved the tribe as well as threatened it, in several quite subtle ways. That whole leonopteryx business, for one. So Sully hears about the legend of the rider who unites the tribes, blah blah blah. So, having fallen from favour among the Na'vi, he decides to regain their trust by going out and taking the leonopteryx as a mount. He just decides. And he does it quite easily. No Na'vi would have done that. They
could have, easily, if he can, but that's not how Na'vi think. In their culture, you choose your mount and
your mount chooses you. This is made quite clear
many times. Humans, on the other hand, choose their mount; end of story.
Which Sully does. He chose the leonopteryx- it did not choose him. He disgards the mount he acquired the Na'vi way and, thinking as a human, he decides to just go out and become a legend, acquiring a new mount as a human does. So we have a human who is now identifying as Na'vi yet acts like a human most definitely not as a Na'vi in order to fight humans.
The act that gets Sully recognized as a leader among the Na'vi was entirely and utterly human. You can't truly change what you are. He may think he's a Na'vi, but the impression I left with was that he was in fact, of course, a Na'vi who was also and thus still is, a human. The subtext disagreed with any surface suggestion of black-and-white, at least how I read it. And I can't accept the "Na'vi = all good" argument. Does the line "that moron is going to die!" (or whatever) spoken with hateful glee indicate a
nice person?
Even the "Eywa-to-the-rescue" climax struck me as a possible consequence of human interaction with the planet. At the very least, Grace has been "absorbed" at this point- Eywa now has some human in her, albeit only a small amount. We have been assimilated. Eywa will add our biological and spiritual distinctiveness to her own.
You remember how Sully was "praying" to Eywa for help, only to be told that "Eywa doesn't work like that"- she doesn't take sides. Yet when the animals attack, Neytiri cries "Eywa has heard you!" Was I the only one to get the impression she was at least in part responding as Sully would see it- as in, she's assimilated part of a human worldview? Eywa has become in part the archetypal patriarchal warrior god of Sully's "base" culture; Eywa has picked up her vengeful sword! At least in Neytiri's worldview, maybe in a far more substantial way now that human minds are in the mix. So the Na'vi and Pandora are altering slightly, too. Not as drastic as the human to Na'vi plot, of course- but it was there.
Again, I'm not claiming any of this is the height of subtlty or amazing complexity!
But nor is it the stupidly straightforward plot others are suggesting, at least in my opinion. I know some people have legitimate dislikes over issues such as "yet another crazy, scary military man as the villain" or the tired "evil corporation exploits" ideas- yes, those were
perhaps straightforward and unsubtle and potentially unfortunate. But overall trends are more the concern here, are they not? I see entirely how it might be "the straw that broke the camel's back" if you've seen so many movies and too few sensitive and positive portrayals of soldiers, corporate businessmen, etc. But does that make this film, judged in itself, "stupid"? Tiresomely predictable and a bit offensive, okay, I can understand, but in that case is it not the overall trends in cinema people have a problem with?
As for the "Dances with Wolves" "white guilt" argument- imperialism and destroying other tribes to get their resources or for any other reason is not limited to any one race, culture or historical period. It happened/happens all the time, all over, and with people of many skin colours. The more technologically or otherwise advanced tribe attempts to steal from/wipe out the neighbours.
I think people are seeing what they want to see a lot of the time. They see certain political "self-evident" analogies that are only there because they bring them to the viewing with them. It's like the terrorism. That word came up once, if I recall, in a throw-away line in the midst of a classic "justifying an attack" scene. But all those folk in the cinema pricked up their ears at the word "terrorist" and acted like it meant something. It's common practice to denounce an enemy- especially one engaged in raiding and sabotage operations- as terrorists, and to demonise a group you're trying to justify ordering an attack on.
Mentioning the word "terrorist" once does not a War-on-Terror analogy make. 
Terrorists and accusations of terrorism were around long before Bush.
I think, overall: "Avatar" is very popular, and so like anything popular it's become a battleground between various political and social ideologies, with much anger and venom and (on the other side of the scale) "I'm a Na'vi in human form!" cults, apparently.
I think it was a perfectly okay film, with great visuals and a story that was average, not original but possesed enough subtlties and race-identity/individuality/loyalty questions to keep me interested. Stupid? No. Masterpiece? Definitely not.
It was...a reasonably good film.
Though maybe annoying or personally offensive if you've had one too many "bad soldier" stories and are seeking some balance.
