Avatar: Review:

                                                                Review: Avatar

IF 2009 is the year that 3D comes of age then James Cameron's Avatar could well prove to be the tipping point.

The last time the writer-director spent an eye-watering amount of money on a film was 12 years ago with Titanic.

That three-hour epic won the Best Picture Oscar and sailed into history as the biggest box office hit of all time. Cameron celebrated by spending a decade diving into the world's oceans, occasionally surfacing with a piece of ground-breaking film footage that cinemas were barely ready for.

Now, technology it seems has caught up with Cameron's imagination and he has spent a reported $300m creating the most lavish, technically advanced digital 3D experience ever seen. So it's no surprise that Avatar is a technical dream machine; a tantalising dip into another world alive with possibilities.

But although it maybe boldly taking cinema into a new dimension, at 161 minutes long and with a preachy story that's more old hat than cutting edge, overall the movie is a bore.

At the half-way point the wow factor is over and you realise that you are actually watching Pocahontas in space – except, sadly, no-one sings Colours of the Wind.

Cameron's tale takes us to the world of Pandora in the company of wheelchair bound war veteran Jake Sully (Sam Worthington).

We have trashed our planet so we have sent the diggers to Pandora for a strip mining operation led by Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi).

Sadly the indigenous Na'vi people (10 feet tall ... blue ... prone to tree hugging) have a serene existence with their home world and don't fancy moving out when a rich seam of ore is discovered where the Omaticaya tribe live.

Their leader Eytukan (Wes Studi) plans to stand and fight and Jake is sent on a mission to gain the trust of the natives.

But as the planet can't support human life he needs the help of a green scientist (Sigourney Weaver) who has developed a way of fusing the minds of humans with Na'vi host bodies (or avatars), so they can explore the planet the same way we might journey into a virtual computer world.

But as his Na'vi alter-ego, Jake goes native, sympathising with the tribe and falling in love with the chief's daughter Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and promising to defend the tribe when the gunships (led by Stephen Lang's mad-dog marine) move in to remove them.

Like many of Cameron's movies - Terminator, Aliens - Avatar has echoes of Vietnam in its grunts-at-war mentality. And surely Michelle Rodriguez's helicopter pilot was on Alien's Nostromo or in Platoon, or both.

Cameron is, of course, always happiest when he's blowing things up – ocean liners, spaceships and robots.

But it's the new eco-warrior in the director that is so irksome here. This is really a revisionist western set in space, with the Na'vi representing the native Americans who were butchered to near extinction in the 19th century by people who cared less for the environment. As such, it's part Dances with Wolves as well as Pocahontas.

Bit odd, though, to take the side of the oppressed and to champion getting back to nature at the same time as spending half a poor country's GDP on the budget of one film.

Now, all of this may well be forgotten in the rush to admire the spectacle and there are plenty of times when we are dazzled – even if Pandora's does look a bit like King Kong's island (the Peter Jackson version). But the problem with technology is that it quickly palls. Today's gimmick is tomorrow's throwaway toy.

Titanic is still watched and enjoyed not because Cameron spent millions recreating the sunken ship but because we fell for the romance between Kate and Leo.

Not all technological miracles leave a lasting legacy if they haven't a good story at their heart. The Jazz Singer might have brought the world talking pictures but who on earth wanted to watch it again even 10 years later?

Toy Story survived not because it heralded a new era of computer animation but because it was fun to watch.

Avatar may mean that digital 3D is here to stay but surely there is better to come.

AVATAR

CERTIFICATE: 12A

RUNNING TIME: 161 mins

STARTS: Today in 3D at the Odeon and Cinema De Lux in Derby, Cineworld in Burton. In 2D only at other cinemas.