Even if it had a crappy story, shallow characters and lame dialogue, James Cameron 3-D spectacle Avatar would earn a big wow solely on the strength of its awe-inducing visuals.

As it turns out, Avatar, which opens Friday, is a damn good movie, period. Building on a solid foundation of strong performances, Cameron and his team have cut from whole digital cloth an exquisitely detailed world at once familiar and gorgeously exotic.

The adventure takes place entirely on the distant orb known as Pandora, an exotic alien world sitting squarely in the cross-hairs of earthlings; military-industrial complex. This is where humans clash with the Navi 10-foot-tall blue creatures that enjoy a special bond with their world.

Every few minutes, Cameron unveils another vista, another beast, some new flower or dinosaur-bird or airborne jellyfish designed to stun the senses and celebrate nature;s sheer fecundity. Like the Discovery Channel on acid, Avatar;s wildlife produces sensations of wonder, awe and delight.

(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)

Throw in a few knife-wielding robots, fierce fight scenes and vertigo-inducing aerial chases amid Pandoras floating forest islands thats right, islands of forests and you've got a PG-13 movie that satisfies even the most jaundiced moviegoers appetite for sci-fi eye candy.

Smartly, Cameron does not overplay his 3-D hand with obvious, stick-in-the-eye stunts. Within minutes, the extra dimension feels like an organic part of the viewing experience. Of course its three-dimensional just like real life. Viewers will notice a few startling what the hells buzzing around my forehead moments, along with vibrating arrow shafts and you-are-there jungle excursions. But for the most part, Avatars proprietary 3-D cameras simply enrich the depth of field, the better to follow the action and imbibe Pandoras luminous explosions of colorful foliage.

For all its immersive majesty, Avatar might ring hollow as a soulless exercise in computer-generated whizbangery were it not for Camerons attention to filmmaking fundamentals.

The narrative sinks deeps roots into an archetypal Pocahontas myth, while the movies eco-friendly theme remains profoundly pertinent. The dialogue is solid and the performances especially by Zoe Saldana, who plays a Navi huntress named Neytiri prove that actors isolated on sterile soundstages with cameras attached to their bodies have figured out how to deliver performances that pack genuine emotional wallop.

The Avatar premise essentially retools Dances With Wolves;exploitive white man goes native scenario. Encased inside a tomblike pod, nail-tough ex-Marine Jake Sully (portrayed with no-nonsense directness by Terminator Salvation star Sam Worthington), operates a remote-controlled avatar genetically engineered from human and Navi DNA. Stationed at the human colonists; Hells Gate compound, Sully is dispatched by his superiors to infiltrate a native tribe that refuses to relocate from the 1,000-foot Hometree that just happens to be perched atop a lode of precious minerals.

Instead, Sully comes under the sway of beautiful Neytiri.

No wonder. Lithe and limber, Saldana tears into her elongated, computer-enhanced character with abandon. Neytiri hisses, snarls, swings from vines and shoots some wicked arrows, all the while demonstrating a bond with the beasts of her world that inspire pathos and envy in equal measure.

Supporting cast members acquit themselves honorably, with Sigourney Weaver re-teaming with her Aliens director to play the Avatar programs chain-smoking tough/tender research chief. Stephen Lang delivers a convincing portrayal of badass military man Col. Miles Quaritch, while Michelle Rodriguez is on point in her Starbuck-like fighter pilot performance.

By coupling credible actors and unprecedented depth of photorealistic detail in the service of a familiar but still-resonant message, Avatar sets 3-D cinema on a profound path that might just change the movie-going experience for decades to come.