Cameron is an easy guy to hate; his hubris — perhaps the only one in the world that can literally be described as “Titanic”; his pronouncements about the future of cinema; his preference to be seen as an obsessive world-builder and not a movie director; that horrible scene in True Lies. And the hype about Avatar was pretty nauseous.

But the stuff I was expecting to hate wasn’t as bletcherous as expected; the stuff I knew I was going to have to endure didn’t last as long as I feared; and the visuals and Cameron’s direction of same were absolutely extraordinary. I have not enjoyed 3D in the past, and tend to think of it as less the next phase of evolution in cinema as a cynical and desparate attempt by the studios to combat piracy and lure the public back into the theaters. Also, the eye doctor cabal.

But the 3D in Avatar is well executed as in no 3D movie I’ve seen so far; there aren’t many STABBY SPEARS or GIANT FLIGHTS OF ARROWS or YAWNING CHASMS; it’s just another brush that Cameron uses to paint his pictures with. In that sense, yes, I suppose Avatar is the future of cinema, but it’s simultaneously less irritating to me and of less import to Cameron than expected.

The plot is a shambles; the movie could not possibly wear it’s Democratic Party fundraiser politics any more obviously on its sleeve — the treatment of the military reminds one of nothing so much as John Kerry’s tooth-grinding speech accepting the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination; the dialog is eye-wateringly dumb when it’s not NARRATED BY CAPTAIN EXPOSITION. It’s certainly less ethically compromised than Dances With Wolves or The Last Samurai, but it shares to some degree in their frankly racist belief in the power of ONE WHITE MAN to save an ancient culture by becoming a hybrid, superior in all respects, learning in two weeks everything they know and then leading them into battle.

But Cameron has always been very good on gender politics (the female characters are all strong and relatively interesting, with the emphasis on “relatively”), and the movie is, for being eleventeen hours long, remarkably well paced. Giovanni Ribisi plays Paul Reiser reasonably well; Stephen Lang makes a great villain; it’s got Sigourney Weaver in it and she climbs out of a pod in her underwear!

But enough said about the people. The visualization of Pandora is where it’s at, and is honestly the only reason to see the movie. Therefore, I am happy to report that it is astonishing. The Massive stuff (Weta Digital’s crowd software) is used to great effect; the new motion capture techniques, improved since Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II, are impressive in helping to bridge the Uncanny Valley, albeit trading a real advance in facial expressiveness for a more limited physicality, although that could be just that Sam Worthington is no Doug Jones.

The world as envisioned is convincing enough, although there’s a bunch of stuff that irritated the ecology nerd in me. While the look of the flora and fauna is well-integrated, and there’s nothing too terribly jarring, I was not impressed by the idea that everything has six limbs except the people. I question the ability of a huge herbivore horse creature to derive enough energy to carry a twelve foot tall humanoid at 30mph from drinking nectar. Even in low-grav the flight seems improbable. Some stuff is too solid seeming for being low-grav (giant flower rhinos?); and yet, the low-grav effects aren’t explored where they might be interesting (the humans are just as weaksauce when faced with alien monsters as on LV-426, for instance). And what’s Cameron’s obsession with waldos, anyway? But never mind. I’m a nerd.

When it comes right down to it, it’s a movie that ends with a giant set-piece of dinosaurs fighting helicopters. My 38 year old self surrendered to my 12 year old self and just sat back, grinning.

Highly recommended; sure, it’s a different movie than The Man Without A Past or The Eel but so what? A man ought not live by esoteric foreign fare alone.