In Dances With Wolves (1990), it's Kevin Costner's U.S. Cavalry officer who insinuates himself into the world of the Lakota Sioux. In Avatar, it's Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a member of the "Jarhead Clan," who learns the ways of the Na'vi - a blue-skinned, NBA-tall race of humanoids living in paradise on the planet Pandora. The Na'vi, who resemble buff, pointy-eared runway models, live in a lush rain forest teeming with exotic beasts, including those aforementioned banshees - flying reptile-like creatures that Na'vi warriors must bond with in a rite of passage.
And it's at that point in Cameron's two-hour, 41-minute marvel - when Sully's Na'vi avatar and his female friend Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) take to the air, astride winged banshees - that Cameron's long-borning baby really kicks in. It's like a runner hitting the Zone: All of a sudden, the movie, with its elaborate motion-capture technology (real actors' movements and gestures turned into computer-generated images), breaks into a new dimension - even if you're not watching in 3-D. (Avatar is being released in multiple formats: 3-D, Real-D, IMAX, and lowly, old-fashioned 2-D.)
Set in 2154, Avatar begins with Sully, who is paralyzed from the waist down (there have been military conflagrations in Nigeria and Venezuela, if you're keeping track), set to replace his dead twin brother in an avatar program on faraway Pandora. Climb into a pod, hook up the circuitry, and let your mind and body enter a Na'vi alter ego.
It's a last-ditch effort led by Dr. Grace Augustine (a butt-smokin' Sigourney Weaver) and her group of science nerds to befriend "the indigenous" with these human/Na'vi hybrids. If they fail, the private military force led by Col. Miles Quaritch (a cartoonish Stephen Lang), will start killing the Na'vi and defoliating their Eden.
