By Scott Muoio

The praise is justified. The criticism is likewise. The box office records are indisputable. No doubt, Avatar is a phenomenon.

James Cameron’s groundbreaking science-fiction fable about a disabled marine given a second chance at life is everything its critics claim it to be: technically magnificent, heavy handed, awe inspiring, trite, and just about any combination of adjectives that praise the film’s look and feel while criticizing its dopey storyline. Ironic then that much of the plot is told through speeches rather than visuals and disappointing that film making’s biggest clichés (defiantly wide eyed heroes, scowling villains, red herrings, an awful shoot ‘em up face off third act, and of course, a white outsider hero learning a new culture, embracing it, and then saving it) make the movie one of the most predictable films you will see. But alas, a phenomenon it is, that rare movie which creates a brand new futuristic world with visuals unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Avatar’s story is set sometime in the near future. A new semi-habitable planet exists, Pandora, which is settled by a race of blue skinned humanoids known as the Na’Vi. Humans want the planet not for its sustainability but for a rare mineral found only on Pandora and in incredibly high amounts. The catch – the mother load of this mineral is buried directly beneath the Na’Vi’s main settlements.

The plot of the film surrounds paraplegic marine Jake Sully’s quest to assimilate with the Na’Vi, learn their culture, and then convince them to abandon their land or else suffer the consequences, i.e. get crushed by the human military machine. The twist: Jake is part of a scientific program where human minds are temporarily transferred into Na’Vi bodies grown out of test tubes. Think The Matrix only with less convincing reasons.

The difficulty and cost of the avatar program make me wonder why do it all? It seems crazy to go through all the trouble and expense of creating Na’Vi bodies to infuse them with temporary human minds when you could have just trained these grown Na’Vi as children through adulthood to be the ambassadors your evil plot supposedly requires. Worse, why do it at all when you know you’re just going to steamroll the natives and steal their resources anyway? Indeed, Avatar is a long way around (about 3 hours) when it easily could have been 40 minutes, the same 40 minutes you find in most of today’s action films albeit with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the visuals.

But great visuals and a lame story aren’t everything. So what of the film’s crazy simple message of peace, love, understanding and tree hugging? Its allegory of the reverent, nature-loving Na’Vi to the Native American Indians is hokey rather than enthralling and its portrayal of an American corporation bent on mining the precious resource found within the Na’Vi’s home world is completely over the top even if it is inevitably how giant corporations act even today. Subtleness is not James Cameron’s friend so whether you’re talking about casting an actor as an American marine despite his distinctly obvious Australian accent or resting the entire movie on a premise that is dubious at best Cameron comes out of this effort less like a brilliant visionary and more like the evil bulldozing corporation that earns all the jeers in his film.

Still, I recommend the film’s first two hours while earnestly cautioning against its final one. No matter its numerous shortcomings Avatar’s astounding ability to create an entirely new and interesting visual world is not to be missed.

Director: James Cameron

Producer: James Cameron, Jon Landau

Writer: James Cameron

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney Weaver

Original Music: James Horner

Cinematographer: Mauro Fiore

Editor: James Cameron, John Refoua, Stephen E. Rivkin