While AVATAR may not change movies forever, James Cameron's epic advances the artform as of today: its story is tried and true, simple even, but its cinematic realization explodes barriers that until now have stood between virtual filmmaking and human audiences.  Fifteen years ago, Cameron wrote a story so ahead of its time he waited another decade for advances in computer technology needed to film it.  Then he spent the last five years co-inventing new 3D cameras which could finally capture his envisioned characters, planets, machines and creatures in real time.  AVATAR is not computer animation, it's virtual evolution.

AVATAR is part cinematic milestone, part social event, and at heart the basic mythological fable that must arise in popular culture every so often to ground our psyches.  Though it is not a perfect film, AVATAR excels in all three capacities.  Cameron has a strong record of delivering his patented brand of filmgoing spectacle bursting with technical genius, and this futurist adventure is his latest and greatest.  The wondrous 3D cinematography brings its own magic sans eye-poking distraction, thank the Maker — lush forests glisten and glow with countless imaginative details drawing you deeper into the story rather than rock you back in your seat.

Yet it's the ability of Cameron's camera to record and preserve the character acting which elevates AVATAR's ambition: the Na'vi aren't computer cartoons, they're truly animate creatures as subtle and strong as the actors portraying them.  The wizards at Pixar are genius animators of non-realistic figures who evoke emotion, but the result is always fondly-met fantasy.  AVATAR advances the cause to a new strata of its own making, resulting in a film which looks more like an outer space documentary than a computer-assisted adventure. Goodbye to the stiff process of CG motion capture, hello and welcome to emotion capture — reminiscent of 2001's theme, filmmakers have a new set of tools with which the wiser of these artisans will craft the next generation of modern cinema.

Admittedly, tools are not art themselves and Cameron's fifteen year old script still creaks with some stiffness in the hackneyed lines of dialogue and often shallow supporting characters.  He has written much higher quality scripts since he first conceived AVATAR, and this one doesn't reflect his state-of-the-art screenwriting ability as does his 3D splendor.  We've seen Cameron draw bolder, better, deeper characters in both starring and supporting roles years ago (recall ALIENS and his TERMINATOR saga), yet AVATAR on paper doesn't match up as well to even his earlier work in terms of personalized dramatic personae.  Yet like STAR WARS before it, I suspect AVATAR will thrive on its basic thematic foundation supporting a dazzling new universe that draws repeat audiences seeking new visions, and indeed Cameron delivers just that for 162 minutes.

As previous sci-fi adventures have proven, there is no point in creating new exotic worlds populated with new characters and creatures if the result is emotionless eye candy.  The key tool in AVATAR's cinematic revolution is the will, if not Cameron's demand, that human actors power the story through performance, even in the guise of their 10 foot-tall blue Na'vi species. Sam Worthington energizes this fantasy tale as paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully, drafted into the avatar program to help humans exploit a rare natural resource (unobtainium, the auteur snickered). 

Corporate greed has apparently strip-mined Earth by 2154, and CEO-in-the-field Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) unleashes upon the peaceful garden moon of Pandora his military marauder Colonel Quaritch (macho intensity personified by Stephen Lang).  While Jake's DNA perfectly matches his recently killed twin brother, enabling him to use the Na'vi avatar body, he has neither his brother's training nor mindset to devour and conquer.  While Quaritch plants Jake as a mole to undermine Na'vi resistance against human invasion, anthropologist Dr. Grace Augustine (Cameron favorite Sigourney Weaver) attempts to show Jake that the Na'vi deserve their own unspoiled existence.  Drama, conflict and betrayal ensue with Jake's conduit to the Na'vi, heartstrong Neytiri (excellent Zoe Saldana), caught in between two worlds bent on their own survival.

Cameron never shies away from visual spectacle, and AVATAR has it in three-dimemsions of spades: the flying banshee creatures, the thundering dino-bull thanators inject this lush garden with palpable danger and excitement.  Nature isn't merely respected by the Na'vi, the relationship is both symbiotic and spiritual as wispy, glowing willows play back the voices of ancestors, and the living network of roots sprout filaments literally allow the Na'vi to plug into their world.  The dramatic paradigm of soulless exploitation versus go green self-preservation is as obvious as it is timely, and military parallels abound in the imperial overthrow of a foreign culture.  Wisely AVATAR doesn't rely on such superficial props to tell its tale, as Jake's deal to virtually regain his legs becomes a challenge for him to step up as a moral being, the physically weak defending the spiritually strong in a battle against corruption of souls and native soil.

Pumped up by James Horner's haunting and triumphant score, James Cameron raises the bar for cinematic spectacle and production prowess once again.  A couple hundred million dollars in the making and worth every penny evident on the screen, AVATAR opens a new door of perception into what is possible and, as with any step forward in evolution, it is a bold promise of things to come.

READ FILMEDGE'S SECOND REVIEW OF AVATAR BY JOAN RADELL