Reel To Reel: Avatar

"Dances with Smurfs?"

Going Rate: Worth full price and then some. Absolutely see it in IMAX 3D if you can.
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Medium Language, War Violence, One Scene of mild Alien Sexuality

Never ever count James Cameron out. When he spent $200 million to make Titanic, people cracked the sinking-ship jokes long before the first reel unspooled. Then Titanic hauled in $1 billion and then some. So then Cameron decides to make a $200+ million sci-fi film using advanced motion-capture CGI technology and custom-built 3D cameras. Here come the jokes, but then again, we see the finished product and it's absolutely astounding. Avatar is the perfect synthesis of computer graphics and live action, seamless in every detail and full of visual excitement.

The story, to express it with the Francis Movie Equation, is Dances With Wolves + The Matrix + Jurassic Park. In the year 2125, a mining corporation is digging into Pandora, a faraway planet with an earthlike environment except for the toxic air, which will knock you out in 20 seconds and kill you in a few minutes more. Pandora holds rich stashes of unobtanium, an allegorically-named rare mineral used for... oh, I dunno... I guess it's Cameron's equivalent of dilithum crystals. Getting it would be easy if it weren't for those pesky Na'vi, an oversized indigenous race of blue beings with big eyes, tails, and flat noses -- sort of what you would get if you crossbred a cat with a smurf. The Na'vi speak their own language (developed for the movie by Cameron with help from a linguist) and strongly distrust humans, who can't survive in their atmosphere anyway without a gas mask.

A research team led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Weaver) is studying the planet's natural characteristics while the corporation tears it up, using "avatars" to get around and interact with the natives. Avatars are bioengineered Na'vi clones electronically linked to an operator who shares most of their genetic characteristics. Paraplegic Marine Jake Sully (Worthington) takes a job as an operator to fill the role his scientist brother was supposed to play before he was murdered during a robbery. Dr. Augustine resents a non-scientist grunt stepping in, but that's a minor annoyance next to the lack of respect shown her by company manager Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) or security chief Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who hires Marines to do his bidding. Neither of them have much regard for the "blue monkeys," and brush off Dr. Augustine's attempts at diplomatic relations with the Na'vi. Who needs detente when you can just detonate?

Sully goes in as an avatar bodyguard, but he gets separated from the research team he's protecting after stirring up trouble with the wildlife, and he's left to fend for himself in his avatar body. Now with all the advanced technology in play, why doesn't Sully's team have some gizmo to locate and rescue him? I guess the company has been too busy mining the planet to install GPS. In any case, Sully gets into more trouble with the wildlife only to be saved by a real Na'vi named Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña). Playing the Pocahontas role, she takes Sully back to her clan, and her mother -- who happens to be a high priestess -- instructs her daughter to show the newcomer the real Na'vi ways.

We see Jake learning the ropes, including how to hunt with compassion, fall without getting hurt, and ride large flying beasts and interface with them by plugging in their tails. Turns out the Na'vi have a cool way of networking with just about anything, and Dr. Augustine is anxious to learn more. Selfridge and the Colonel just want the minerals, and they want Jake to convince the smurf tribe to move from their tree so they can get at a huge deposit underneath. Sully's on for that mission until he ends up going native.

Avatar amazes in conventional screenings, but it really wows in IMAX 3D, which is how my family and I saw it. My Royal Father compares it to when he first saw Star Wars or even 2001: A Space Odyssey in that both those films raised the special-effects bar to new heights. The film also scores points for not exploiting 3D for 3D's sake; you will not see the compulsory elements of spears flying into your face. Mostly though, you can't tell if the Na'vi are CGI characters or humans in really heavy makeup and puppetronic devices. It's that clean. The amount of computer power that went into rendering the flying scenes has to be jawdropping.

The Queen Mother was also impressed, but she flashed back to Dances With Wolves, especially with the Na'vi's physical and cultural similarities to Native Americans. If Avatar wasn't so original and breathtaking in its effects work, I could easily dismiss it just like I did last year's The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. At least this film tries to be fresh, and Cameron isn't rehashing his own material. The Royal Father also points out you can see this film over and catch some new detail every time.

The people who dislike this film are bothered by its anti-war tree-hugger vibe. And with names like "Selfridge," "Dr. Grace," and "unobtanium," the symbolism is a little overstated. But James Cameron didn't dump a bank of money into a protest flick. He sat on a script for more than a decade to let computer technology catch up with his imagination and do it right.