Review: "My Salinger Year"

 

I was pleasantly surprised by "My Salinger Year," a based-on-true literary story with a lot of heart and terrific performances by Margaret Qualley and Sigourney Weaver.

This is one my "afterthought" reviews, meaning I hadn't planned on doing it but unexpectedly found some time in my schedule. I've really stepped up the frequency of my reviews this year, and hopefully you've appreciated the effort. 

It's doubly pleasing when I stumble across a film I admire so much during these moments of serendipity.

Qualley plays Joanna Rakoff, an impressionable young woman who ditches grad school and her boyfriend in California to move to New York City and pursue a writing career. She winds up working as an assistant to the boss of a storied literary agency, Margaret (Weaver), who counts among her client list the famously reclusive J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye," a book that has become a rite of passage for young intellectuals.

Joanna is bright and enthusiastic while Margaret is old-school and imperious. The obvious comparison will be made to "The Devil Wears Prada," with Weaver's silver-streaked tresses matched to Meryl Streep's.

But this film, adapted for the screen from Rakoff's book by writer/director Philippe Falardeau, quickly diverges in tone and intent. It's not a denunciation of an entire sick industry and way of thought, but a very specific story about people who move about in a a cloistered society.

The story is set in 1996, a time by which Salinger had already gone three decades without publishing anything. His reticence to engage with his adoring public or submit to interviews only heightened his mystique, as the throngs felt certain he was continuing to write but just not sharing it with the world. 

It's ironic that the creator of Holden Caulfield, a kid who seemed to reject everyone around him, was celebrated for being so withholding.

In the course of the movie Salinger is a minor figure, only heard on the phone or glimpsed from behind. He does decide to publish his first book in many years (actually just reprinting an old New Yorker piece), though that event and his relationship to Joanna are not really central to the piece.

It's more about Joanna finding herself and the courage of her own convictions, evolving from reticent mouse of a girl to a bold woman who asserts her independence -- from her job, the men in her life and even Margaret, who becomes a mentor to her, surprising both of them.

Margaret only reluctantly allows one computer in the office, preferring to do business over the phone and Dictaphone. She initially hesitates to hire Joanna because it's bad business to have aspiring writers in a literary agency. She's very much part of the Old New York world of restaurants, conversations and connections.

Joanna is given two main assignments: transcribe Margaret's dictations and answer the mail sent to Salinger. "Answer" is not a completely accurate description of her role, since Salinger has instructed that the exact same form letter be sent to every writer explaining that he will not respond to any correspondence. Then, Joanna is to shred the fan mail.

The only reason they even go through this step is because of John Lennon's murderer, who infamously had a copy of "Rye" when he was arrested and was among those who wrote to Salinger and was rejected. Of course, Joanna becomes enthralled with all the emotion and thought these people put into their missives. 

Falardeau cleverly casts these writers as characters who show up in the middle of Joanna's day, reciting their letters to Salinger and to her, his reluctant stand-in. Of course, she is soon tempted to respond in a more meaningful way.

On the side she becomes involved with Don (Douglas Booth), another aspiring writer who works in a "socialist bookstore" and considers the commerce of publishing (represented by Margaret) as contemptible. Don is a heel who is selfish but charming in a gruff proletariat sort of way, and Joanna goes along with the relationship without really embracing it. 

Like her job, it's an affair lacking any real romance.

Joanna speaks occasionally on the phone with Salinger, who encourages her to invest in herself, both as a writer and a person (despite calling her "Susanna" early on, owing to wartime hearing loss.) Gradually, she starts to listen to this distant muse. Interestingly, she has never actually read "Rye" and hesitates to do so, preferring to bask in others' love for it.

A few other figures float around in the background of the movie. I really liked Seána Kerslake as Jenny, Joanna's friend, roommate and fellow writer wannabe, who is first to see and grasp her future. Colm Feore pops up as Daniel, Margaret's kindly, well-dressed companion -- brother? boyfriend? we're not really sure, but enjoy having him around. Brían F. O'Byrne plays Hugh, who once had Joanna's job but graduated to Margaret's legal-guru-slash-protector.

But really the focus is on Joanna and Margaret. They are two women who seem very different, one at the end of her turning and the other right at the beginning, who come to find more in common than they'd ever thought possible. Margaret doesn't exactly melt into a bowl of warm empathy -- it's just not in her DNA -- but she realizes that Joanna has a promise and resolve in her that needs to be tapped, even if it's not by her.

I only know Qualley from her temptress role in the enjoyable but vastly overrated "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," so I was glad to see her do something more substantive and emotive. Joanna isn't the easiest character to play as someone who is just learning to access her own emotions, but Qualley finds a way to let us see past that timid exterior.

The real Joanna Rakoff has indeed gone on to a notable writing career, including the memoir upon which this film was based. In the end it's less about the mystery of J.D. Salinger than the woman whose barest brush with greatness gave her the courage to chase her own.

Review: "A Monster Calls"

It’s often said that there’s nothing in life more unfair than a parent burying a child. But a child saying goodbye to their mom or dad is also one of the most traumatic things we can go through. For most of us it happens when we’re in middle age, and in some ways it marks the final waypoint in the passage to full adulthood.

But what about when we’re still kids ourselves? “A Monster Calls” tells the harrowing story of a young British boy whose mother is dying.

No one says this outright, but we sense the final destination from the very beginning. His mother, lovingly played by Felicity Jones, puts on the bravest of faces and smiles and says everything is going to be alright, because that is what a parent who loves their kid does.

But our first instinct, to shield them from pain, is not always the best one. Conor O’Malley senses in his heart what his brain will not allow. His terror manifests itself in a fearsome vision that appears to him nightly at seven minutes past midnight: A vaguely man-shaped creature formed from the branches and leaves of a yew tree, threatening to eat him.

It says Conor can escape this fate if he listens to three true stories by the creature, and then tells one himself. But if he lies -- to the monster, and to himself -- he will be gobbled and gone.

The tree beast is the result of excellent CGI animation and the superlative voice and expressions of Liam Neeson. A mix of fury and harsh comfort, he takes role of the father figure Conor is missing. Dad, played by Toby Kebbell, is alive but living in America; emotionally, he’s even further away.

Lewis MacDougall plays Conor, and this is truly one of the great child acting performances of my lifetime. (Think Haley Joel Osment in “The Sixth Sense.”) He embodies the full range of Conor’s emotions, including a lot of negative ones involving anger and resentment. Many adult performers struggle to craft a character as three-dimensional as this.

Patrick Ness wrote the screenplay based on his own book, which was inspired by the idea of another writer who died before she could bring it to fruition. J.A. Bayona, who previously directed the disaster drama “The Impossible,” directs with humility and passion.

The filmmakers shine by not trying to force the audience into this emotional box or that one, but letting them feel the full weight of conflicting feelings washing over them just as Conor does.

The monster’s three stories are related in gorgeous animation. At first they seem like simple fairy tales, involving princes, witches and the like, but as time goes on the creature reveals deeper layers of meaning. Sigourney Weaver plays Conor’s grandmother, a brittle woman who becomes the boy’s chief antagonist (other than the yew monster) during his mother’s slow march toward death.

Since I saw “A Monster Calls” more than a month ago, I’ve been struggling with the decision of whether or not it’s an appropriate film for kids. Given the parable-like story construction and “cartoon” character, I worried that people would mistake this as a “children’s movie.” Certainly it is not that.

But I do think older children might do well to see this film, to help them deal with loss or prepare them for the possibility of it. There is very grown-up stuff here, like the push-and-pull of family members who don’t want to lose their loved one, but reach a point where they just want the suffering -- theirs and ours -- to cease.

As the film year has ended and another begins, I’ve been asked to comment on whether there’s any dominant cinematic theme I’ve noticed for 2016. Generally I consider this a dangerous game, since movies are conceived and executed so far in advance of when they come out that it mostly becomes an exercise in people projecting their own hopes and fears onto works of art.

But the notions of mourning and regret are transparently there to see in many of my favorite films of the year, such as “Manchester by the Sea” and “Hell or High Water.” An exploration of that anguish that comes before death, “A Monster Calls” belongs on that list, both for its themes and its tremendous quality.

Video review: "Finding Dory"

If “Finding Nemo” was groundbreaking filmmaking, then the long-gestating sequel “Finding Dory” is cinematic comfort food. It’s not really necessary, and it certainly doesn’t match its predecessor, but we get a warm feeling just from having it around.

Set some time after the last adventure, the star here is Dory, the forgetful blue tang voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. We find out more about her backstory, such as the fact her funny/annoying short-term memory loss is not the result of some injurious experience, but something she grew up with as a little fishy.

My friend Ed Johnson-Ott of NUVO Newsweekly, a wonderful film critic and even better human being, correctly noted that this revelation irrevocably alters how we feel about Dory as a special-needs person, likening it to his own family.

“Dory is presented as what she is: an individual trying to work around her limitations. She assumes that most of those around her will help when they can, and most of the time she is right,” he wrote. “Individuals like Dory remind us that we are a community and, especially when one of us is a little more vulnerable, we need to behave like one.”

Dory, suddenly instilled with flashes of long-ago memories of her parents, determines to go on a quest to find them. Nebbishy clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) and son Nemo (Hayden Rolence) come along, too. They end up at the fictional Marine Life Institute, which first seems like a haven for injured sea life, but has a dark shadow just beneath the surface.

Many of the critters there display odd behavior as a result of their captivity. Some want to be free, but many others are complacent about their stable existence. One is Hank, a cranky octopus lovingly voiced by Ed O’Neill. He can change colors and mold his squishy body into all sorts of shapes, even operating human gizmos like a pro. He helps Dory and the gang, but only if they first scratch his back (so to speak).

A combination of slapstick antics and empathetic storytelling, “Finding Dory” will make us remember why we adored the original film so much, and fall a little bit more in love with Dory.

Bonus materials are extravagant, though you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray version for most of them. The DVD has only the short film “Piper” and a feature-length commentary track by director Andrew Stanton, co-director Angus MacLane and producer Lindsey Collins.

The Blu-ray adds nine deleted scenes and 10 making-of featurettes, touching on everything from creating Hank, the musical team, underwater explorations of real fish who inspired the onscreen ones, interviews with inhabitants of the Marine Life Institute, and more. Personal favorite: “Casual Carpool,” in which Stanton drives some of the key voice actors around.

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Extras: 

Review: "Finding Dory"

Of course it doesn’t hold a candle to “Finding Nemo,” but that’s a pretty darn bright flame to be held up against. We’re talking “best animated film ever” territory here.

“Finding Dory” isn’t that, but it is an agreeable and welcome follow-up to the 2003 hit from Disney/Pixar. Even more than the first “Toy Story” flicks, “Nemo” showed us the boundless possibilities of computer-based animation, in terms of technical accomplishment but especially emotional engagement.

Ellen DeGeneres brought incredible empathy to her voice performance as Dory, a forgetful blue tang who befriends worrywart clownfish Marlin while searching for his fishnapped son, Nemo. A story about reaching out beyond our limits while learning to let go of fears -- and children’s apron strings -- “Nemo” took us on an emotional journey as real as the cross-ocean trek of our gilled companions.

Now it’s Dory’s turn to go on a trip of discovery. Struggling with short-term memory loss her entire life, so she forgets new experiences minute by minute, she suddenly has dim flashbacks of her parents, and sets out to find them -- with her orange-and-white pals in tow, it goes without saying.

Albert Brooks is, of course, back as the voice of nebbishy Marlin, who’s grown a lot in the year since the last story took place, though he’s still overly protective of Nemo. (Hayden Rolence takes over the role of the tyke since original actor Alexander Gould is a twentysomething now.)

This movie, again written and directed by Andrew Stanton, focuses less on the trip than the destination: the (fictional) Marine Life Institute on the California coast. A sort of sea-life utopia with a dark undertow, it’s a place where injured fish are snatched up from the ocean, rehabilitated and returned to the sea -- unless they’re needed for an aquarium in Cleveland, that is.

The human workers are rather blasé about how they treat the critters, and some of the fishies have acquired off-kilter personalities during their confinement, such as a lonely giant oyster who’ll talk your ears (if you have them) off. Sigourney Weaver provides the soothing voice of the tourist park’s narrator, lulling us into a false sense of benevolence.

Among the new characters is Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), a nearsighted whale shark; Bailey (Ty Burrell), a beluga whale convinced his echolocation ability is on the fritz; and Fluke and Rudder (Idris Elba, Dominic West), a pair of lackadaisical sea lions, former residents of the marine institute who now serve as a sort of territorial Greek chorus.

Undoubtedly the film’s finest creation is Hank, a cantankerous octopus voiced by Ed O’Neill. A longtime captive of the marine center, Hank agrees to help Dory find her parents in return for a one-way ticket to a quiet life in a glass box. He can change his color and contort his slippery body to camouflage himself against virtually any object -- not to mention manipulate human tools with hilarious aplomb.

The movie’s a little too overly reliant on slapsticky action to carry the plot forward. I lost count of the number of times Dory & Co. jumped or were dunked from one body of water to another, from a sippy cup to child’s sand pail to a janitor’s mop bucket, without ill effects. You just have to roll with it.

(A former aquarium hobbyist, my brain kept screaming: “But those sudden changes in temperature, pH level and salinity would be deadly!”)

Despite the fact it’s nowhere near as accomplished as its predecessor, I wasn’t disappointed by “Finding Dory.” The second trip is rarely as exciting as the original excursion, but you can ride the current of warm feelings from the last time.

It felt nice to be back in good company, going on another adventure with the gang. Speaking of which: make sure to stay all the way through the credits.

Reeling Backward: "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982)

You could probably summarize the entire plot of "The Year of Living Dangerously" on a postcard, with space left over. Not a lot really happens, yet what does transpire seems so consequential and filled with dramatic heft.

The film, directed by Peter Weir based on the novel by C.J. Koch, is a testament to the observation by screenwriting legend William Goldman that dialogue is often the least important part of a script. The movie has many long wordless or near-wordless scenes that use imagery and music to pull us into an emotional vortex of longing and dread. Weir and Koch co-wrote the screenplay along with David Williamson.

Take the scene where callow young Australian journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) and British embassy worker Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) first hook up in Indonesia circa 1965. They've been introduced -- set up, really -- by a mutual friend (more on that later) and have sort of skipped around each other nonchalantly a couple of times before. Then they show up at a party for Westerners, each accompanied by different people.

Jill is just ravishing, creamy shoulders and lithe limbs bursting out of a strappy dress; Guy is seething and sweaty, filled with primal urges. They're incredibly beautiful people, and everyone in the room can't take their eyes off them. They bump into each other while dancing with others, try to brush it off, but their attraction is combustible, and palpable.

One gets the sense the other party goers are only there to serve as witnesses to their joining.

Later they escape from a stuffy embassy party and drive off in his car for a tryst, despite the strict military curfew and shocking break with the Brits' starched-shirt decorum. They run a blockade, Guy's Chevy Impala gets filled with bullet holes, but they laugh and smile at their little rebellion, as the electronic thrum of Vangelis' "L'Enfant" buoys them into the night.

Most of the talk Jill and Guy do share is logistics: Where are you going? When are you leaving? Why won't you return my calls? The only real substantive conversation they have onscreen is Jill (who's actually a spy in the book though it's only hinted at in the movie) telling Guy about an incoming shipment of arms to support the Indonesia Communists (PKI), a clear indication a coup is imminent. Guy opts to use the intel for a story -- rather than save his own neck as she intended -- vaulting his career but betraying Jill.

"Year" is masterful at evoking a specific time and place -- one that, frankly, isn't high in the consciousness of most Americans. Indonesia in the mid-1960s was a place of burgeoning rebellion, and a backwater for aspiring foreign corespondents like Guy. He and the other journalists, from the Washington Post or whatnot, pine for promotions to Saigon, where the real action is. They're fighting each other for scraps of information from the government of the dictator-like president, Sukarno, and for newsprint inches and airtime back home before an indifferent public.

Weir spent much of his film stock simply representing the street people of Jakarta, underlining the humbling poverty and rising anger of that period. (The film was actually shot in the Philippines, as the Indonesians were hostile to the story; the movie was banned there until 1999.)

Here was a people who had felt the yoke of the West, shrugged it off, and now felt the push-and-pull of various factions vying for power: the establishment, the Muslim leaders, the Communists, etc. Meanwhile, the people suffered and starved.

The film is likely most remembered today for the casting of Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan, the mysterious and oddly affecting photographer/enigma who befriends both Guy and Jill, and nudges them together. It was one of the first major instances of a performer playing a character of the opposite gender. Hunt won the Academy Award for her performance by a Supporting Actress, launching an unlikely career that has remained busy till today.

She's completely believable as a man; Hunt chopped her hair to a severe short style, wore padding under Billy's standard uniform of trousers and a vaguely Hawaiian shirt, with the shirt pocket stuffed to give it a weighted, untidy look. Billy, of course, is not an average-looking person: he's supposed to be half Caucasian and half Chinese, and a dwarf to boot.

Billy also seems to be asexual; everything about him screams Other. Yet he easily slides in and out of the Sukarno corridors of power, or mingles with the street people unnoticed. He is accepted, or at least tolerated, wherever he goes. His exceptionalism somehow grants him a form of invisibility, which he cherishes and utilizes for his purposes.

Billy's motivations are hard to discern, and fickle. He claims to admire Sukarno for his puppet master skill at balancing the forces arrayed against him, but cares deeply about the suffering of the people. He has unofficially adopted a prostitute and her sickly young boy, bringing toys, medicine and cash to their miserable hovel by the polluted river, where they bathe and drink. When the boy dies of starvation and illness, Billy snaps and vents his anger at the regime that fails to feed its people.

Similarly, Billy takes an immediate liking to Guy, seeing him as a white knight, and uses his influence and connections to see that his career is a success, getting Guy interviews with the Muslim leader and other key figures. Billy also sets him up with Jill, whom he adores in a chaste way -- even once asking her to marry him. When Guy betrays Jill for the story, Billy sees it as cheating on his own trust, too.

Capable of great affection and monumental anger, Billy blows like a zephyr in whatever direction his passions take him. He keeps meticulous files on everyone he knows, including Jill and Guy, whose meetings he secretly photographs.

After Guy discovers this, Billy denies being a spy, and this is probably true. He's observing life rather than living it, gathering information and using it to move people around like pawns in a game of chess he's not trying to win or lose, but simply play with a sense of purity he knows is unattainable.

I marvel at how politically incorrect this film would be if it were released today. Hunt playing a man would probably still be celebrated as brave, if for different reasons, but a white actress portraying an Asian character would be unacceptable.

Similarly, Billy calling out another Australian correspondent (Noel Ferrier) for dallying with his boytoy servant -- a virtual death sentence in the Indonesia of six decades ago -- is an act that today would be viewed as irredeemably homophobic. Add in the way the American reporter (Michael Murphy) enjoys using the cheap local female flesh as fodder for his vile self-aggrandizing.

But "The Year of Living Dangerously" is not a film that tries to comfort us. Rather, it shows us the dark underbelly of what humanity is capable. The Americans and British and Aussies do not have a direct hand in perpetuating the misery of the Indonesian people, but they're more than happy to employ it as a lever for their own personal devices. I think of the many scenes in which the Westerners drink and carouse as the natives look on with envy and growing hatred.

Gibson's Guy Hamilton is neither hero, as Billy would have him, or villain, but somewhere in the grey. He wants the scoop and he wants the girl, and he's willing to do questionable things to get them, even if it means parlaying one for the other. But he's genuinely sickened by the poverty and human waste; the other reporters and even Jill criticize him for the "melodramatic" tone of his copy.

"The Year of Living Dangerously" is a grand and grim reminder of our capacities for hope and despair, and that you don't need a lot of words to convey big ideas.

Video review: "Exodus: Gods and Kings"

Ridley Scott is one of my favorite movie directors, but it’s hard to deny the man is responsible for his fair share of duds. He’s had a bit of a string of them lately, usually as a result of trying to redo previous films that didn’t really need another iteration: 2010’s lackluster “Robin Hood,” the bewildering “Prometheus” from 2012.

“Exodus: Gods and Kings” is essentially Scott’s version of “The Ten Commandments,” with Moses and pharaoh Ramesses duking it out over the fate of the Jewish people, with plagues and miracles descending on high with equal fervor.

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic hasn’t aged well – it plays now as a remarkable artifact of old-Hollywood hokum. But it wasn’t exactly crying out for a remake.

The result is a rather dull affair, with Christian Bale as Moses, a prince of Egypt revealed to be a Jew, spending years in his desert exile communing with the Lord, who takes the form of a small boy. Eventually he returns to Egypt and the predictable special effects fireworks crank up, along with plenty of battles. Here Moses wears armor and comes off closer to Spartacus than the robed holy man of scripture.

We’re further distracted by the heavily mascaraed presence of Joel Edgerton as Ramesses. Gosh knows I am not one to kowtow to politically correct imperatives. But casting an Australian as an Egyptian pharaoh is at least a 9.4 on the scale of White People Screwing Up Historical Stuff.

It’s a nice-looking film, with terrific costumes and sets and CG backdrops. As you’d expect of a Ridley Scott flick, the action scenes are staged crisply and energetically. But the characters all seem so glum and lifeless, as if they’ve been drained of their vital essence. Bale is so dirge-like in his disposition he makes his Bruce Wayne seem like a party animal.

Ultimately, “Exodus” fails the first test of filmmaking: why does this movie need to exist? It doesn’t, and we needn’t bother.

The movie is being given an excellent video release with a spate of bonus features, though you’ll have to pay more for the best stuff.

The DVD comes with eight deleted and extended scenes, plus a feature-length audio commentary track by Scott and co-screenwriter Jeffrey Caine. Upgrade to the Blu-ray, and you add another deleted scene and “The Exodus Historical Guide,” a feature-length trivia track.

Go for the 3-D collector’s edition combo pack, and you add an entire blu-ray disc of bonus features. These include “Keepers of the Covenant,” a feature-length documentary on the making of the film, a historical perspective on Moses, photo galleries, promotional featurettes and more.

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Video review: "Rampart"

"Rampart" is one of those independent movies that get a decent amount of buzz but never quite break free of orbit ... or even show up in theaters in most towns. Woody Harrelson was thought to have a decent shot at an Oscar nomination for his brutal, mesmerizing performance as an L.A. cop whose corruption goes down to the bone.

But in a year in which Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling and Michael Fassbender got snubbed, it wasn't surprising that a little-seen crime drama was overlooked.
Harrelson is indeed hard to take your eyes off of, though the film itself is a little disjointed at times.

It also has one of those unfortunate endings that's supposed to seem ambiguous and "arty," but feels like the movie just stops arbitrarily.

Set in 1999, "Rampart" is the story of Dave Brown, the original dinosaur cop. He's a racist, violent throwback and he knows it -- he just happens to think back in his daddy's day was better. He drinks on the job, extorts favors from businesses, shoots suspects and then plants weapons on them, and every other dirty trick you've ever heard of.

After a quarter-century of bad deeds on the force, Dave gets in serious trouble after a random auto accident ends in him viciously beating a man, the whole thing caught on video and played endlessly on television.

As the noose draws slowly but inevitably tighter around his neck, Dave gets more and more desperate, and woe to anyone who gets in his way.

Director and co-writer Oren Moverman seems to be in the Woody Harrelson business; his first feature behind the camera was the acclaimed "The Messenger," which did get an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay.

Video extras are not bad. There's a feature-length commentary track by Moverman, interviews with the cast and crew, and a handful of behind-the-scenes featurettes.  

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four  
Extras: 3 stars

Reeling Backward: "Ghostbusters 2" (1989)

I've occasionally seen well-known movie critics reverse themselves -- almost invariably, giving a second positive review to a film they dissed the first time around. Never the other way around. Roger Ebert famously gave "Unforgiven" an indifferent review, then changed course shortly thereafter when an overwhelming preponderance of the critic corps lavished it with praise. He begged off that he was distracted by his upcoming marriage. A decade later, he went so far as to include it in "Great Movies," his compendium of reviews of masterpieces.

Personally, I have never seen a movie I deemed bad that I later changed my mind about enough to view it positively. More often, films I adored once upon a time diminish when seen years later with a different perspective. Frankly, I'm more than a mite suspicious of anyone who totally changes course when they find their negative opinion of a film leaves them all alone.

I will say, however, that "Ghostbusters 2" was much better than I remembered it. I saw it only once back when it came out in 1989, and watched it again while experiencing some down time (a nearly unrecognizable commodity these days) during a recent trip.

This isn't to say it's great, or even good. But it's a reasonably funny and entertaining movie that, if it existed on its own, would not be seen as the disaster it was generally viewed as at the time. It doomed any talk for a third movie, though that's perked up again lately, with Bill Murray insisting he won't be involved.

I think a couple of things made "2" seem like such a letdown. The first was the relative long interval between the first film in 1984 and the sequel. At least during the '80s, if a movie did very well the sequel almost always came out two years later, three max. Apparently there was some problem getting the cast to all come back with a screenplay they agreed upon, and that's reflected in the disjointed nature of "2."

The biggest reason, though, is what a huge act it had to follow. I really don't think it's possible to overpraise the original "Ghostbusters." Perhaps my views are colored by childhood memories, but for my money "Ghostbusters" is right up there with the all-time great film comedies -- "Some Like It Hot," "Singin' in the Rain," and so on. Other than being raucously funny, it tapped into scientific and psycho-babble neuroses that were flying around at the time. It essentially launched the genre of the big-budget action/comedy, and brought science fiction into the cinematic mainstream by poking fun at it.

Strangely, one of the things I remember most about "2" was the characters of Louis Tully, the Ghostbusters' nerdy attorney played by Rick Moranis, having a romance with their laconic secretary, Janine (Annie Potts). Like most teenage geeks, I was entranced by the idea of a woman throwing herself at a man with no reason to expect such attentions. Plus, their coupling was cute.

The script, by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, contains a few good zingers. The courtroom scene is one, where Tully addresses the judge in his opening comments and concludes with the patter, "and one time I got turned into a dog and they helped me." Director Ivan Reitman plays out the comic timing on that reaction exquisitely, cutting back to the judge looking utterly gobsmacked.

Another great throwaway line is where the Ghostbusters pop in on their ostensible leader, Peter Venkman (Murray), while he's having dinner at a fancy restaurant with erstwhile lady love Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver). They're covered in ghost goo and make quite a scene, until Venkman hushes them with the classic, "Guys, guys, you're scaring the straights!" This is perhaps one of the first Hollywood movies in which gay humor did not come at the expense of the homosexual community.

I also enjoyed Peter MacNicol's daffy Janosz, the curator at the art restoration museum where Dana is working. He talks in a flighty Eurotrash accent, but when pressed reveals that he's a native-born American.

So why doesn't he film work? Well, the lack of a really good bad guy doesn't help. The villain is Vigo, a long-dead Slavic slayer who is brought back to life when a giant painting of him is reanimated by the negative energy flowing in great churning rivers under the city of New York. He's kind of scary-looking, but just doesn't have a lot of personality.

I also missed the prickly peevishness of Walter Peck, the hostile city bureaucrat so memorably played by William Atherton in the original. Until Gozer arrives on Earth and starts wreaking havoc, Peck operated as the main adversary for the Ghostbusters. Kurt Fuller tries bravely to fill in as the mayor's newest jerk toady, but he just doesn't conjure up the sort of quotidian malevolence personified by Peck.

And of course, the story's finale is a virtual repeat of the one in the original, with the aggressive giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man replaced by the benevolent Statue of Liberty, brought to life by the boys and ridden to the rescue. One icon blown up to titan size smashing stuff in the Big Apple equals big comedy; the second go-round feels like a cynical, uninspired rehash.

Still, I have to give "Ghostbusters 2" points for exceeding expectations, or at least my wrongful recollection of it as a disastrously bad flick. Time may not have totally changed my mind, but it did mellow out my hostility.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Paul"

"Paul" is quite possibly the first extraterrestrial stoner comedy. At least, I couldn't think of any others offhand. I Googled "movies in which aliens get stoned" and got zippo. Maybe I should've used Bing.

The alien and his human cohorts do not actually spend the entire movie getting high, but this film definitely has a crunchy road-trip vibe. Think "Cheech & Chong" meets "Starman," with some "Shaun of the Dead"-type genre spoofing. This latter flavor is not surprising, considering that "Shaun" collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost wrote the screenplay and star in "Paul."

The title character, a buggy-eyed protagonist who can turn invisible and heal people and animals with a touch, is voiced by Seth Rogen in his blowsy, cool-dude mode. We get the distinct impression that on his world, he's the Jeff Spicoli. At least, we hope he is. Paul (a nickname, and later we discover how he got it) crashed his spaceship in the desert more than 60 years ago, and seems to have little ambition or direction in life.

He's been the guest-slash-prisoner of the U.S. government ever since, and would've been content to stay there until he recently learned that he's outlived his usefulness. He goes on the lam, smashes his stolen car and gets a lift from Graeme and Clive (Pegg and Frost), a pair of British nerds taking a tour of Area 51 and other alien-themed hot spots in a rented RV.

There's a lot of funny in-jokes about why all aliens in pop culture have the same general resemblance as Paul. He tells them the government disseminated those images so in case more of Paul's folks show up, people will at least have a frame of reference and not totally freak out. There's even a hilarious flashback where Paul gives Steven Spielberg the idea for E.T.'s glowing magic finger.

Hot on his trail is Zoil (Jason Bateman), a Secret Service agent who's really serious about his job, and seems impervious to humor. He takes orders from a female boss we only hear over the phone, and has to deal with a pair of nitwit rookies (Joe Lo Truglio and Bill Hader) assigned to help.

Paul, Graeme and Clive hide out in a trailer park, where they bump into Ruth (Kristen Wiig), the daughter of a Bible-thumper. She wears those odd glasses with one frame blacked out to conceal an eye condition, and it doesn't take special powers to guess Paul will have something to say about it.

His intervention helps her cling a little less bitterly to her religion, and soon Ruth is tagging along, determined to try out some new swear words and maybe break a few commandments. It's a charming, cheeky and funny role, and underlines the burning necessity that Hollywood give Wiig her own star vehicle, now.

"Paul" is directed by Greg Mottola, who helmed the ridiculously overrated "Superbad," but also the criminally ignored "Adventureland." Together with Frost and Pegg's script, they manag to find a loose, entertaining groove that's way funnier than "Pineapple Express." The humor is generally in well-traveled terrain with a generous helping of dick jokes, but somehow having it coming out of the mouth of a little green man makes it fresh and ironic.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Cedar Rapids"

Critics are supposed to be repositories of sharp opinions and certainty, but I admit I didn't quite know what to make of "Cedar Rapids." This new comedy is springboarding out of the Sundance Film Festival and into theaters, starring Ed Helms as an incredibly naive insurance agent sent to a big conference in the title city.

When I say naive, I mean that Tim Lippe seems to have reached adulthood without having emerged from the cocoon of puberty. He's literally sleeping with his former sixth-grade teacher (Sigourney Weaver), and it's not a wild guess this is the only semblance of a relationship he's ever had. She's a recent divorcée enjoying her sexual freedom, but Tim thinks he's in love.

Tim appears to be a variant of Andy, Helms' dweebtastic character from TV's "The Office," with a double helping of cluelessness and a schmear of the uptight dentist he played in "The Hangover."

"I said, 'Here's a kid who's gonna go places,'" his boss tells him, "and then somehow you didn't."

Tim was born and raised in Brown Valley, Wisconsin, a small town where everybody knows everyone else, and the bad apples get picked out pretty quick. When the hotshot at Tim's company suddenly dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation, Tim is charged with taking his place at the insurance convention in Cedar Rapids.

His mission: To bring home another Two Diamond Award for excellence in insurance and integrity. They've got a three-year streak going, and the boss wants another.

Awards are funny things. It seems like anybody can dream up a prize with no tangible benefits, and people will trip over themselves trying to win one.

At my first newspaper gig, we were turning a sleepy community weekly into a competitive daily, and our editor cleverly dreamed up the "20 Byline Club" to motivate us to churn out copy. It was just a cheap plaque, but anybody who wrote 20 or more stories in a week got their name on it. Mine was plastered all over it, of which I was exceedingly proud at the time, but now I look back and chuckle. I was working 75 hours a week for 17 grand a year, killing myself so an upstart rag could be filled with stories on the cheap, and the only person who benefited from my 20 bylines was the guy at the trophy shop who got a few bucks to stencil a name.

Anyway, Tim meets up with a host of other characters equally as unlikely as himself. There's Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), a boozing, loudmouthed glad-hander whom Tim was expressly warned to stay from. Of course, they're forced to be roommates, and soon they're downing shots together.

Then there's Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche), nicknamed Foxy, who uses the annual convention as a chance to liberate herself from her boring life, married with two kids. She sets her sights on the gullible Tim as this year's dance partner.

Kurtwood Smith is Orin Helgesson, the association president who dreamed up the Two Diamond thingamajig. He explicitly wants to marry God and business, which prefers the secular life.

The only one who seems grounded and plausible is Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), a straight-arrow type who professes a fondness for "The Wire," which is an inside joke because Whitlock was in it.

There are a decent amount of laughs, and John C. Reilly in particular gets off a lot of incredibly tasteless yet funny one-liners. At a morning prayer breakfast, he complains of "big-time beer (poops) this morning."

My ambivalence about this movie is rooted in the way the director Miguel Arteta and rookie screenwriter Phil Johnston approach these characters. We don't believe for a second in them as real people, or that the cast is invested in them beyond a vehicle for yucks.

Helms and company seem like they're mocking middle-America vanilla-ness, which is ripe for mocking, but they also want to embrace it with a cuddly ending. Even Tim Lippe could see through that ruse.

2.5 stars out of four

Video review: "You Again"

I love the cast of "You Again." And I enjoyed the slapsticky humor, of which there is plenty. Pretty much everything else about this Disney comedy is take it or leave it, though.

Kristen Bell plays Marni, a high-school ugly duckling who got her swan on in her 20s. Now a successful public relations executive, Marni uses the story of her loser days to inspire eager young interns: 'Believe in yourself, face your problems, and you too can blah blah blah blah…'

Disaster strikes when Marni realizes the woman her big brother Will (James Wolk) is marrying is none other than Joanna (Odette Yustman), the girl who tormented her back at Ridgefield High. Joanna was captain of the cheerleading squad, and ruled the school with a bitchy fist.

These flashback scenes are a laugh riot, due in large part to the convincing physical transformation of button-cute Bell into a nerd with droopy bangs, a face full of brace, and skin erupting with a bounty of zits.

Joanna acts as if she doesn’t even remember Marni, and proceeds to subtly make her feel like dirt all over again. Marni, though, is determined to extract an apology for the many wrongs done her. If she doesn’t get it, she’s prepared to extract her revenge by sending the marriage down in flames.

This set-up would be sufficient for most comedies, but "You Again" doubles down by replicating the dilemma one generation upward. Turns out Marni’s mom Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis, in a hoot of a performance) had a very similar experience in her school days with Ramona (Sigourney Weaver), who is revealed as Joanna’s aunt.

No one is going to confuse “You Again” with great filmmaking. But if you can stand the slow stretches, you’ll find an agreeably entertaining family-friendly comedy with a little bit of bite.

Extras are good in both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo format, with deleted scenes, a spoof interview with the cast that turns into a catfight, photo stills and a featurette following director Andy Fickman around.

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Video review: "Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition"

When "Avatar" was initially released on video in April, I praised James Cameron's visionary film even as I harshly criticized him for giving us such a bare-bones disc -- lacking any kind of commentary track, making-of documentary, anything. It was a major disappointment, and an abandonment of the film's fans to give the top-grossing movie of all time such a meager and, frankly, lazy video release. I stand by those words.

But I also predicted that Cameron would eventually issue a special director's cut or special edition, as he has done with his other seminal films like "Aliens," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "The Abyss" -- though not, notably, with 1997's "Titanic." These special collections boasted all the behind-the-scenes goodies one could ask for, as well as an extended cut of the film.

What I really liked about these previous discs was that they also came with the theatrical version, so you could switch back and forth to the director's cut with the touch of a button.

It wasn't any sort of sorcerous act of prognostication, but I've been proven right: "Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition" follows in the wake of Cameron's other terrific special video editions -- and even puts them to shame.

I can't even begin to describe the amount of extras contained in the three-disc Blu-ray edition. There's hours -- no, make that days worth of material to go through. I've only had time to experience a small portion of them, and they have left me deeply impressed.

Start with the fact there are three versions of the film: The original version; the theatrical re-release edition containing eight additional minutes of footage; and the Collector's Extended Cut that adds another 16 minutes -- bringing the total run time to just a hair under three hours.

The additional footage is seamlessly edited into the existing version, but one great feature allows you to immediately jump to the bonus material for those too anxious to wait to see what's new. (I know I was.)

The extended version includes a haunting new opening sequence of Jake Sully's life on Earth, which has a hard-boiled dystopian flavor reminiscent of "Blade Runner." There's also quite a bit more backstory on Sigourney Weaver's character.

After watching the film, it's time to flip over to the other two discs crammed full of stuff. Start with even more movie to watch: 45 deleted/extended scenes totaling 67 minutes of screen time. If for no other reason, they're interesting to watch for the various levels of completion of the special effects combining live action, motion capture performances and CGI.

A making-of documentary runs 98 minutes, tracking Cameron's first thoughts about making "Avatar" even before he started shooting "Titanic." Cameron says the idea for the fantastic world of Pandora didn't come from any single spark of creation, but an entire childhood filled with a fascination with nature, coupled with an adult's fondness for art and science fiction.

Then there are production videos: Animatics, conceptual videos and early versions of the story told in comic-book style. That's another 84 minutes right there. There's also a 20-minute long feature "A Message from Pandora," which is essentially Cameron's personal plea for conservation of the environment.

The centerpiece of disc three is "Opening Pandora's Box," which includes 68 minutes worth of the most CG-heavy scenes. By clicking buttons on your player's remote, you can instantly shift the view to see how the scenes were put together one layer of animation at a time.

Seventeen production shorts running a few minutes each touch on every topic imaginable, from stunts to music to costumes. I was astonished to learn that Cameron had actual copies of every piece of clothing worn by the Na'vi manufactured for real, and even dressed actors tinted blue for video capture. (The skimpy Na'vi outfits somehow look even more daring on real humans.)

There are also hundreds of production still photographs, a copy of Cameron's original screenplay, and even "Pandorapedia" -- an encyclopedic description of Pandora, its inhabitants and interconnected ecosystem. It's 449 pages long!

I might quibble about the lack of a commentary track, but frankly with this astonishing amount of material I'm not sure what else Cameron would have to add.

One genuine criticism: For some reason, the Extended Collector's Edition does not include a digital copy of the film for loading on portable devices. This was actually the only extra included on the original video release of "Avatar," so to exclude it here is puzzling indeed.

Perhaps we'll have to wait for the Super Special Limited Director's Cut to get that thrown in.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 4 stars

Review: "You Again"

I love the cast of "You Again." And I enjoyed the slapsticky humor, of which there is plenty. Pretty much everything else about this new Disney comedy is take it or leave it, though.

It's nice to see a movie that's not based on a book, comic strip, video game or another movie -- it was simply dreamed up out of screenwriter Moe Jelline's head, his first feature film. And if elements of the film seem familiar -- some have already dismissed it as "Mean Girls" for an older audience -- then at least the winning cast carries the material through the dry spots.

Kristen Bell plays Marni, a high-school ugly duckling who got her swan on in her 20s. Now a successful public relations executive, Marni uses the story of her loser days to inspire some eager new interns: 'Believe in yourself, face your problems, and you too can blah blah blah blah...'

Disaster strikes when Marni realizes the woman her big brother, Will (James Wolk), is marrying is none other then Joanna (Odette Yustman), the girl who tormented her back at Ridgefield High. Joanna was captain of the cheerleading squad, and ruled the school with a bitchy fist.

These flashback scenes are a hoot, due in large part to the convincing physical transformation of button-cute Bell into a nerd with droopy bangs, a face full of brace, and skin erupting with a bounty of zits. It's ironic that high-school movies often cast actresses the age of Yustman and Bell as 17-year-olds, and now we see how they get away with it.

Joanna acts as if she doesn't even remember Marni, and proceeds to subtly make her feel like dirt all over again. Marni, though, is determined to extract an apology for the many wrongs done her. If she doesn't get it, she's prepared to extract her revenge by sending the marriage down in flames.

This set-up would be sufficient for most comedies, but Jelline doubles down by replicating the dilemma one generation upward. Turns out Marni's mom Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis, in a hoot of a performance) had a very similar experience in her school days with Ramona (Sigourney Weaver), who is revealed as Joanna's aunt.

Now a fabulously wealthy hotel magnate, Ramona doesn't miss an opportunity to rub her success in Gail's face. Gail responds in kind, showing off some cheerleading moves and participating in an impromptu (and solo) drag race.

"High school was a horror movie. This weekend is the sequel," Marni laments.

Director Andy Fickman is an auteur of bland, family-friendly flicks -- "The Game Plan," "Race to Witch Mountain" -- and his ham-handedness is evident whenever the movie slows down for serious moments. Whenever the physical humor is front and center, though, it's an enjoyable romp.

The supporting cast is charming, top to bottom. Victor Garber plays Gail's pleasantly put-upon father, and Betty White pops up as Grandma Bunny, an octogenarian with a lusty streak. (Although, doesn't that describe all of White's TV and movie gags lately?)

Kristin Chenoweth plays Georgia, an impossibly spunky celebrity wedding planner, Billy Unger is Marni's wisecracking kid brother, and Sean Wing turns up as an old would-be flame of Marni's from school.

I especially liked Kyle Bornheimer as Tim, an old boyfriend of Joanna's who Marni invites to the wedding rehearsal to stir up the pot. Turns out Tim has some deeper-seated issues, which Bornheimer hilariously lets bubble to the surface.

No one is going to confuse "You Again" with great filmmaking. But if you can stand the slow stretches, you'll find an agreeably entertaining family-friendly comedy with a little bit of bite.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Aliens" (1986)

"Aliens" holds a special place in my heart. It was around its release in 1986 that my love of movies escalated from a childhood fascination into a lifelong passion. Not coincidentally, that was also the summer I got my first official job -- at a movie theater, not surprisingly.

This was in the day when popular movies would hang around in cinemas longer than two weekends, and I remember we were still selling plenty of tickets for "Aliens" in its six month. This also gave me an opportunity to watch the movie over and over again, and learn to anticipate the audience's reaction to the various frights and laughs (and yes, there are plenty of them).

Conservatively, I've seen the movie at least 100 times, but not for a few years. I decided to pop it into my player and see how it looked on my new LED TV.

The film holds up really well in terms of the characters, the suspense and the ultra-creepy alien creatures -- which are so black and spider-like, they seem less like organisms than null space brought to life.

I was surprised to realize that some of the special effects don't hold up as well -- in fact, some of the shots of the drop-ship approaching and leaving the infected planet of LV-426 look downright hokey. But don't forget, writer/director James Cameron was not yet the box office king he would become, and the studio saw fit to invest him with a budget of only $18.5 million. Even in today's dollars, that's less than $37 million -- peanuts by summer-movie standards.

It's interesting that the film, a sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 atmospheric horror-film-in-space, is generally regarded as an action movie. Go through it, and you'll realize the character and dialogue scenes far outweigh the kablooey stuff.

I made some notes while watching the film. The first 30 minutes is concerned with the rescue of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and setting up the outbreak on LV-426. The second 30 minutes is all about establishing what ultimate badasses the Colonial Marines are, and observing their infiltration into the wrecked colony.

It's almost all suspense-building, as Cameron expertly draws out the audience's mounting anxiety. Consider this: The first full-grown alien does not appear until after the one-hour mark.

A director's cut of "Aliens" is now widely available, and for the most part I think the additional scenes add richness to the film (while ratcheting up the ratio of dialogue-to-action even higher). With one exception: There's an early scene of the colony before the aliens infested them, and it's a total disaster for the movie-watching experience.

Here's why: It shows you the colony, the people, and the beginnings of the alien encounter. In other words, LV-426 becomes a known quantity. When the Marines arrive, you have a pretty good idea of what they're getting themselves into. The movie is so much more effective when the crew shows up, and we're completely bewildered about where they are and what happened.

Anyway, the actual first encounter with the aliens lasts about 15 minutes. Then there's another 30 minutes as the survivors figure out how they're going to get off the planet, and intrigue with the corporate toady, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), who wants to take the aliens back to Earth for military research. The last 45 minutes is the chase as Ripley's gang is picked off as they try to hot-foot it to the rescue ship, and her final showdown with the alien queen.

I still love the interaction between the marines, and how distinctive the characters are despite not a whole lot of individual screen time or dialogue. People most remember Bill Paxson as nervous-nelly Hudson, Michael Biehn as the butt-kicking Hicks, and Jenette Goldstein as the muscle-bound Vasquez. ("Have you ever been mistaken for a man?" Hudson teases her. "No ... have you?" she cracks back.)

I admit that the character of the android Bishop (Lance Henrikson) has receded in my mind's eye. I seem to remember him as being much more in the middle of things, but he spends most of the movie stuck in a lab or sent off on a mission to summon the other drop-ship. He only really has two substantive scenes: The knife trick with Hudson in the mess hall (still a hoot) and getting split in two by the alien queen in the final sequence.

Narratively, Bishop essentially acts as a red herring, making us think he'll wig out and start killing people like the android from the last movie.

Other than "Avatar," most of Cameron's films have featured female protagonists, and the feminist themes of "Aliens" are pretty plain to see. The childless Ripley gloms onto the colony orphan Newt (a terrific Carrie Henn, in her first and only film role) out of maternalistic instinct.

(In a bonus scene in the director's cut, we learn that Ripley did have a daughter, who died of old age while she spent decades wandering space in hyper-sleep.)

It's a more mature vision of the action hero, as a woman who fights for her (adopted) family rather than some testosterone-fueled need to assert dominance.

Ripley was hailed as cinema's first bona fide female action hero, and we can see her footprints in more recent films such as this summer's "Salt."

For my money, "Aliens" remains the perfect summer movie.

4 stars out of four

Video review: "Avatar"

So what kind of video release do you give the newly minted top-grossing film of all time?

One full of oodles of never-before-seen insights and peeks behind the scenes? An interactive pop-up commentary with auteur James Cameron? Exclusive interviews with the cast? Dare we imagine 3-D presentation to take advantage of all those expensive new televisions with this feature?

For "Avatar," the answers to these questions are: No, nope, uh-uh and fugeddaboutit.

The cinematic sensation is being given an absolute bare-bones video release on April 22 (to coincide with Earth Day). It's arriving with zero extras, whether you choose the DVD version or the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack (though the latter does at least include a digital copy).

Cameron is known for waiting to deliver the real goods with a special edition that usually includes a longer director's cut (see "Terminator 2," "The Abyss"). I believe that's what we can expect with "Avatar."

So if you want all the goodies a watershed film like this demands, content yourself with just renting for now.

Like "Titanic," James Cameron's other much-loved and -loathed epic, "Avatar" is a film whose flaws become more apparent after you've left the cinema. The clunky dialogue, derivative plot and downright silly sci-fi gobbledygook (Unobtainium?) tends to pile up.

But while you're in the theater, sitting there in the dark, it's a thoroughly engrossing spectacle of the first order as we witness the plight of the blue-skinned alien Na'vi and their paradise planet of Pandora, which is steadily being encroached upon by greedy humans plundering it for ore.

Whether or not that experience will translate to your living room television, with the dog barking and the kids clamoring, is a good question. I wish I could answer it for you ... but I can't. The studio declined to provide review copies prior to the release date.

(I suppose with $2.7 billion in ticket sales, they figure they don't have to spend any dough to promote it.)

My guess is that "Avatar" will diminish somewhat on the small screen. Some films -- "Lawrence of Arabia," "Ben-Hur," "Saving Private Ryan" -- need a big canvas to envelop you. But it says something that "Avatar" belongs among those titles.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 1 star

Review: "Avatar"

A critic should endeavor to go into a movie without any preconceived notions or biases. When that is not possible, they at least owe it to the reader to be honest and forthright about it. So I am compelled to say that I expected "Avatar" to be underwhelming.

Alright, let's be blunt: I really thought this movie was going to suck.

Boy, was I wrong -- wonderfully, joyously wrong. Never have I been so happy to have my expectations shattered.

Like many, I watched the trailers for "Avatar" and cringed. This is what writer/director James Cameron spent $300 million on (and by some estimates, much more) for his return to feature filmmaking after 12 years away? Never has a movie been so ill-served by its previews.

"Avatar" is epic in scope and in ambition. Cameron uses computer-generated characters and imagery not as accompaniment to live actors and sets, but as his main instrument.

This movie is visionary, a word that gets bandied about but has real weight here: This is a vision like nothing you've ever seen.

The blue-skinned aliens called Na'vi who looked so cheap and cheesy in the trailers are fleshy and corporeal (and nearly nude) in the finished film, best viewed in eye-popping 3-D. The lush forests, floating mountains and waterfalls of the world of Pandora are like a National Geographic pictorial on hallucinogens.

The story is familiar -- by my count, the third film this year portraying humans as exploiters of an alien world -- but feels fresh. The depiction of corporations as mindless mechanisms destroying in the name of greed is a common theme in Cameron's films ("Aliens," "The Abyss," "The Terminator" and its sequel).

Giovanni Ribisi plays the company flunky in charge of extracting a rare and valuable ore under Pandora's surface, even if it means displacing and killing the Na'vi. (Cameron shows some of his penchant for goofiness in naming the ore Unobtainium.) His right-hand man is the scarred, scary former Marine colonel (a terrific Stephen Lang) now commanding an army of mercenaries to do the dirty work.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Hollywood's new It Boy for big-budget spectaculars) is a crippled ex-Marine whose murdered twin brother volunteered for the new Avatar program, which grows special human/Na'vi hybrid bodies controlled by humans. Since Jake has the same DNA as his sibling, he's enlisted to take over his brother's avatar.

Jake's stuck between competing interests of the colonel, who wants to use the avatars to infiltrate the Na'vi, and the chief scientist (Cameron fave Sigourney Weaver), who envisions a peaceful outreach mission.

In his avatar form, Jake meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi warrior and daughter of the clan chief (Wes Studi). She saves his blue bacon from some jungle dogs, though she's resentful of his presence and bumbling ways. But she gets a sign from the earth spirits her people worship to trust him.

The months pass, and Jake is eventually accepted into the tribe. The human bulldozers grind ever closer, however, and soon he'll have to choose loyalties.

Cameron slides easily between live action and computer-animated sequences, and while I won't overstate their success by claiming the transitions are seamless, they aren't jarring.

Some of the movie's metaphysical constructions have a dollop of hokum -- the depiction of the Na'vi as an emblem for American Indians grows stronger, and more strained, as the film progresses.

I still don't quite know what to think of the Na'vi's ability to mind-meld with flying dragons and other creatures via tiny tentacles every critter seems to have. It's like an entire world of animals outfitted with USB ports.

But quibbles aside, "Avatar" is a spectacle not to be missed. The game has changed.

3.5 stars