The film follows the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a crippled ex-marine whose deceased scientist twin brother was due to travel to Pandora, a neon jungle planet populated by an oversized cat-man race called the Na’vi. In the name of research and alien-human relations, the scientists have created ‘avatars’: genetic hybrid bodies that look like the Na’vi but that are ‘driven’ by human pilots. 

Unfortunately, the moment Sully makes contact with the Na’vi, the plot basically devolves into Pocahontas. The evil human military people want a very rare mineral (called Unobtanium, and I challenge anyone to keep a straight face when this is announced), which involves them blowing up the Na’vi sacred tree, which leads to Sully rebelling against his former masters, which leads to him fighting alongside the Na’vi. And so on. There’re plenty of eco-messages and anti-Iraq comments for those that give a hoot, but mostly the film just builds up to an inevitable climax of bombs and bullets. 

So it’s not Shakespeare. Or even Gilbert & Sullivan, to be honest. If I have to judge on story, the film gets a four out of 10. Maybe a five for allowing Sigorney Weaver to chain-smoke and be snarky for no particular reason other than that she is wonderful when she’s smoking and being snarky. However, if you let your brain take a break and just gawp at the visual effects, Avatar is cinematic gold. 

On a normal cinema screen, Avatar looks impressive. On an IMAX screen with a pair of 3D glasses, Avatar is as close as any of us will ever get to standing on an alien planet. Pandora is a sumptuously beautiful world, filled with gigantic waterfalls and floating islands and enormous foliage that glows in the dark. Admittedly, a lot of the animals look like normal animals with extra horns glued to them, but when a hammer-headed rhino-thing is charging through a forest towards the camera in 3D, who wants to be picky about the probability of evolution?

Suddenly, you don’t care that the story is paper-thin. You don’t care about the ethical or postcolonial implications of a white man from a visiting military force being the saviour of an obvious metaphorically ethnic society. You don’t care because Jake Sully is dive-bombing military gunships on a pterodactyl, and everything is exploding in three dimensions.

Thankfully, James Cameron knows what he is doing, and the 3D never takes over the film; there are very few moments where he tries to make the audience duck with a special effect. The 3D serves to add depth to an already stunning world, and is one of the main reasons why the film is as impressive as it is. 

I would be cautious about watching Avatar on DVD; the film is three hours long, and there are far better investments of your time. However, if it’s on at an IMAX near you, book the afternoon off, buy the largest bag of popcorn you can find and go and see it.