Parents who view the lateststate-of-the-art 3D sonogramof their unborn infant are

often amazed and even unnervedby the detail, beauty and the starkreality of what is to come. For afilm critic, viewing Avatar is also anoverwhelming look into thefuture-the future of filmmakingand film watching. The film hasalready been compared togroundbreaking features such asThe Jazz Singer, the film thatbrought sound into themainstream, and Star Wars, whichchanged the scope and scale ofscience fiction. After 14 years ofdevelopment, three years ofproduction and a rumored budgetof half a billion dollars, director

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oC. SAM WORTHINGTON (center) plays paraplegic marine Jake Sully.

Avatar soars in 3-DJames Cameron once declared himselfking of the world. Now he has his eye

on bigger things - he wants to rule theuniverse, the future and your brain

• By JONATHAN AMERIKANER

AVATAR(US)Fantasy (762 min.) Rated PG-73for intense epic battle sequences

and language.

James Cameron and his team havecreated a film that truly places usinside the world they imagined forus. Avatar is a film you don't justsee. It's an experience.

Avatar takes place in the year2154, and Earth is dying or dead.The human race is now forced toexcavate fossil fuels from alienworlds. An unnamed company hasdiscovered a powerful source ofenergy in a mineral called (nofooling) "unobtainium" on thedistant planet of Pandora. The

planet's indigenous tribal cian, the"Naavi," tries to stop thecompany's excavations. A race of12-foot tall blue humanoids, theNaavi share many attributes of afeline. The story follows paraplegicmarine Jake Sully (SamWorthington) who is part of ateam of earth "pilots" able to

remotely control their geneticallygrown Naavi bodies - their"avatars." The pilots' mission is tofind a diplomatic solution with theNaavi, who will not move fromtheir ancient home which happensto be situated on top of the largestdeposit of "unobtainium" onPandora.

How can a fantasy seem so real?Cameron pulls it off. He createsthe world of Pandora with awe-inspiring detail and yes, "realism."Mountains float in the sky. Treesreach a thousand feet into the air.There are rhino-type creatures thesize of elephants with heads likehammer-head sharks andfluorescent spores like jellyfish thatfloat gently through the air. JamesCameron's last three films werepseudo-documentaries exploringthe deep sea and clearly Cameronwas affected by the luminousworld of the deep. Some of themost beautiful sequences takeplace at night when all of Pandorabecomes alive with aphosphorescent glow.

If you can see Avatar in 3D, do.It was envisioned as a 3D film, andafter spending the last severalyears deep in the ocean filming 3Dfilms such as Aliens of the Deep(2005), Cameron has perfected histechnique. Early last spring I hadthe unique opportunity to see ashort clip of Avatar on a 3Dtelevision (yes, they exist). I wasskeptical because I feared the 3Dwould remain a gimmick. ButAvatar refrains from resorting tocorny objects hurtling at theaudience. Instead Cameronmasterfully and subtly uses 3D toprovide depth and a sense that weare actually there. In one thrillingsequence, Jake, in a Naavi rite of ,passage, must capture a dragon-like creature and tame it mid-flight. In fact, much of Avatar takesplace in the skies, which looksglorious in 3D.

There was (and still is) muchhype surrounding Avatar. Somereviewers believe it mayrevolutionize the way movies aremade and seen. Time will tell.Some will compare it toCameron's last mainstream film,the billion-dollar grossing Titanic(1997). Titanic was carried byyoung women who returned tosee the film multiple times. Avataris a science-fiction actionadventure, whose core audiencewill probably not be youngwomen. Nevertheless, this is anepic film that demands to be seenon the big screen.