This is the best movie I have ever seen, and I don't ever want to see anything else like it again. 9 out of 4 stars.
Everybody should see this at least once (with the new 3d of course), it is by far the most powerful entertainment experience ever. There were several times I felt like I was about to cry. Not because the movie was going through a sad part or playing sad music, but because there was so much to process visually, and my head couldn't handle it all at once.
Great but not excellent story, sort of a futuristic "destroy em' all" cowboys searching for Unobtanium (LOL!) vs. nature worshipping indians with the home field advantage. Fantastic canvas for the new technology, each instance of a spinning disc or spiral was mesmerizing. The creators clearly knew this and took every opportunity to show you many spirals and spinning things at once. This is one of those rare instances where you simply can't explain it well enough, everybody has to see it for themselves to truly understand what people are talking about. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a frame of this movie in 3d is worth 10 thousand words.
Why I would never see it again: I had a minor headache and had to 'wind down' for a few hours after leaving the theater. Things like a wall hanging were starting to appear as though they were layered into 3d patterns (which was both interesting and a little disorienting/scary), so there's clearly a hangover from staring at this stuff for 2.5 hours. I have excellent vision, and frankly I'm worried what would happen if I were to see a movie like this every week. Or if TV started broadcasting the same kind of stuff. I had no desire to do anything except stare at the wall for the next 2 hours and digest all the information and sensory stimulation I had just experienced.
Lots of parallels and interesting connections within and stretching outside the movie though. For example, I think they did a great job using this particular story with a guy plugging into a new experience and world, as it is a lot like the viewer in the theater plugging into a new form of cinematic experience. I can see a lot of people I know getting sucked into a videogame FOREVER if it looked like this film does. The movie really made me think about a lot of things those 2 hours after I left, from the technology and its implications for future entertainment products, the movement towards more and more matrix-y lifestyles, and the fairly profound statement about respecting nature and its inherent and interconnected power.