I keep hoping that the combination of 3D and Cameron storytelling will magically transform this movie. But have to say... fundamentally Avatar has already failed. ALL the pre-release talk and hype has been about this being photoreal and how it must also work in 2D. It isn't and it doesn't. It looks pretty enough, and it may end up a cracking film, but on those criteria it's a failure.
In Empire this month Cameron makes that point of how hard it is to make something look truly human and real bacause of our evolutionary background to spot incredible detail in faces. He's right... and the tech ain't there yet to fool us.
Incidentally, anyone else suspect that Empire magazine has done a deal with Fox and we can't expect much honesty from them on this? At least until the film is out... my prediction is a "re-evaluation" on DVD will be forthcoming next summer, citing the lack of 3D as "revealing" the film's weaknesses...