The Avatar movies have always struck me as very well done spectacle. Cameron actually understands what that means on a big screen. The plot needs to exist for things to happen. Considering you can pick out the extra movies the formulas borrowed from, that isn't too surprising. Though I'll give the first one credit for, when doing the "see, he was in the military, he does fighting think!" scene, they actually had a pretty solid point about an Apex Predator normally have a weak spot. I always thought that was actually clever.