THERE comes a time on a Sunday arvo when the temperature hits 42C that you think it could be an idea to go and sit in someone's airconditioning and watch a movie.

Escape to a cooler climate and another planet. That the planet and its population should be in the latest "3D" format is attractive too.

I learned early that no matter how bad a 3D film, you can always turn around and look at the audience, row upon row of people with stupid-looking glasses on, and find the weirdness of it almost worth the cost of admission.

But this film is one that even we out in the scrub have heard of, if only for the fact it cost as much as an aircraft-carrier to make and recouped most of that in its first weekend.

Avatar is a blockbuster whose plot and characters and dialogue follow a formula so predictable and cliched that it should be indigestible to an adult of average intelligence but these flimsy components are draped over a construction of such technical and aesthetic brilliance that you just have to swallow the whole thing whether you like it or not.

The 3D works perfectly to showcase the imaginations of the legions of designers who slaved over their computers to create the stars of the show. These aren't the 3m-high blue locals who sit somewhere between Pocahontas and Sea Monkeys, it is the botany on this unlikely planet that is breath-taking.

It is a fact that it is no longer the skill of the film-maker that is on show - they are just following a tedious recipe - it is the creative talent of visual technicians that holds it together.

To say it isn't ultimately entertaining wouldn't be honest any more than I could say that a franchised cheeseburger is inedible. But it just isn't actually good. We commented on the way home how odd it was that after sitting through this three-hour film, none of it stayed with you. Nothing lingered in the mind to turn over and contemplate. It was like a bucket of fried chicken, big and kind of "special occasion", but simply devoured by a family then binned and forgotten immediately.

I felt uneasy sitting there being washed over by cartoon philosophies of ecological harmony, while on the roof the aircons ground away.