James Cameron's 3-D "Avatar" has all the smack of a Film Not To Miss — a movie whose effects are clearly revolutionary, a spectacle that millions will find adventure in. But it nevertheless feels unsatisfying and somehow lacks the pulse of a truly alive film.

"Avatar" takes place in the year 2154 on the faraway moon of Pandora, where, befitting its mythological name, the ills of human life have been released. The Earth depleted, humans have arrived to mine an elusive mineral, wryly dubbed Unobtainium.

The Resources Developmental Administration, a kind of military contractor, is running the operation. At the top of the chain of command is the CEO-like Carter Selfridge (an excellent, ruthless Giovanni Ribisi), who's hellbent on showing quarterly profits for shareholders. His muscle and head of security is the rock-jawed Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who curses Pandora's inhabitants (the Na'vi) as savages and considers the place worse than hell.

In fact, it's a paradise. In Pandora, Cameron has fashioned a sensual, neon-colored, dreamlike world of lush jungle, gargantuan trees and floating mountains. Its splendor is easily the most wondrous aspect of "Avatar."

Our main character is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former Marine who lost the power of his legs in battle on Earth. His scientist twin brother has just died and Sully, having a matching genome, is invited to replace him in a mission to Pandora.

He joins a small group of scientists led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) who are attempting to learn more about the Na'vi by conducting field studies and doing a bit of undercover science. They've created avatars of themselves to go about Pandora as a living, breathing Na'vi, while their human bodies lie dormant in a sort of tanning bed (they return to them when their avatars sleep).

"Avatar," which Cameron wrote as well as directed, is essentially a fairy tale that imagines a more favorable outcome for the oppressed fighting against the technology and might of Western Civilization. Sully, who quickly takes to life as a Na'vi, begins to feel his allegiances blurred.

Though he has promised Quaritch to spy on the Na'vi (their home lies atop an Unobtainium deposit), he begins to appreciate their ways. He also falls for Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), the Na'vi princess and the one who introduces him to the tribe.

Many Na'vi are suspicious of Sully, but they eventually embrace him. They accept him as a leader, even though he occasionally goes limp and vacant when his human body isn't connected. This off-switch makes for questionable leadership skills — as if George Washington had been a narcoleptic.

The inevitable battle has overt shades of current wars. Quaritch, drinking coffee during a bombing with a cavalier callousness like Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now," drops phrases like "preemptive strike," "fight terror with terror" and even "shock and awe," a term apparently destined to survive for centuries in the lexicon.

These historical and contemporary overtones bring the otherworldly "Avatar" down to Earth and down to cliche. The message of environmentalism and of (literal) tree-hugging resonates, but such a plainly just cause also saps "Avatar" of drama and complexity.

Ultimately, the technology of "Avatar" isn't the problem — moviemaking, itself, is an exercise in technology. But one need look no further than Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" to see how technique — whether it be antique stop-motion animation or state-of-the-art 3-D performance capture — can find soulfulness at 24 frames per second.