Avatar

The first Matrix was great, then they got progressively worse. Any message in them was so completely obscured that it didn't matter. The subject was completely novel and the story line had never been done before. None of the special effects were very groundbreaking. The highway sequence was close to unique. The trailers were not aimed outward at the audience but towards the movie. So to me there is nothing to compare Matrix to Avatar.
You have to consider that there are no aliens in Avatar. It was written by, for and about humans. Not much different than an anthropomorphic Disney animal cartoon. I probably shouldn't have written this. As was said in this thread earlier, "ignorance is bliss", and I shouldn't spoil it for anyone who doesn't see thing the way I do.