NEWS FLASH!!! I have seen "Avatar."

And I have questions.

First, yes, I know you're all agog. I'm certainly on the cutting edge of movie-going. Why the heck did it take me so long to see the biggest sci fi extravaganza in the history of the twenty-first century? Well, remember, Diana and I are in a family way. We have small kids, we both work, and we don't exactly have maids or gardeners to help with our household or the yard. We're really busy, man!

We barely watch TV, barely read, for Pete's sake, and when we do have the chance to sit down and watch something in its entirety, it's usually movies like How To Train Your Dragon (which I highly recommend, btw; it's well written and very well done) or Despicable Me (which is hilarious).

Maybe we get to the theater by ourselves four times a year. When we do, Avatar is exactly the kind of thing we like. We both enjoy stupid romantic comedies, but there's no reason you can't watch those at home for a few bucks instead of $30. [image error]

If we're going to shell out for the theater experience, we want things to BLOW UP! HELICOPTER CHASES! ALIENS!

But Avatar was out of theaters before our schedule lined up. It was out of RedBox before our schedule lined up. The local Blockbuster is dead and we don't subscribe to Netflix because, hey, the monthly subscription just doesn't make sense when you watch less than one movie per month. I know, I know, what a pair of Neanderthals! We should be watching movies on our iPhones while we're texting our friends about what sandwich we're going to order while we're standing in line at Subway with our iPods thumping Justin Beiber's hot new tune.

Next we didn't want to buy the damn DVD set because it stayed at $19.99 forever due to unrelenting demand. Finally Diana grabbed the extended version collector's edition for Christmas — still $20 — and it sat on a shelf for two months.

Good movie. All in all, a solid A-, and I don't say that lightly.

Everyone has heard about the predictable characters, the paint-by-the-numbers plot, the poignant environmental message beneath and the stunning visual effects. Agreed. The main thing to ask yourself is Was I entertained? And the obvious answer is Yes, this was an extremely entertaining film, even groundbreaking in many ways.

Let me just ask a few questions that caused me to irritate my lovely patient wife right in the middle of our viewing experience.

Yes, I can be too analytical. No, I don't expect James Cameron could care less. But he really needs to put me in his back pocket for the next blockbuster because Avatar could have had its butt-whompingly cool shoot 'em up ending without being stupid.

Question 1: Why the heck would a combat veteran like the colonel fly his armada through Pandora's floating mountains instead of over these dense hunks of rock and vegetation when with just another four hundred feet elevation, his fleet would have been clear of any dragon ambushes, much less find itself in close combat among these ship-killing chunks of rock?

Right?

Okay, let's say the air is too thin for their space helicopters to get enough lift for that extra four hundred feet.

Question 2: Why the heck is he risking his entire air force in any case? His goal is mortally wound and demoralize the enemy by destroying the Tree of Life. He has orbital supremacy!!!! How about he kicks back in his ground base and asks the starship to toss down one single kinetic missile. It doesn't even need to contain a warhead. Just send a chunk of metal with a simple guidance system zamming down at re-entry speeds and there will be a very large crater where the tree had been, and there's not a thing the blue monkeys could do about it. Don't tell me our starfaring humans don't have the technology. Worse case scenario, they'd have to cobble it together in engineering. Maybe they need a day.

Meanwhile Jake has used up weeks bringing the tribes together. The colonel's watching them gather via orbital telemetry. Maybe he throws down eight more kinetic missiles and devastates their army. [image error]

Question 3: Okay, the space helicopters can't get enough lift to avoid the floating mountains and the starship crew is a bunch of numb-fingered morons who don't know rocket science. He has to fly his armada to the target. But why the heck are there ground troops in the jungle?!?! Sure, he says they need to soften up the natives. Indeed, it was awesome when all the wildebeests of Pandora joined together in a group mind assault on the nasty humans. But really. You're on a faraway moon that's six years from help. You have limited personnel. I think you keep your troops on the perimeter of your heavily fortified base while you launch your air assault, take down the Tree of Life, then reassess how badly you've weakened the natives. In the meantime, using your eyes in the sky, why not swing a few space helicopters past the largest gatherings of blue monkeys and light them up with some rockets?

Question 4: This goes right to the heart of the entire plot. Here we go. The evil corporate humans want the superconducting rock. Understood. It's awesome. And they know there's a huge deposit right under the Na'vi home tree. But… aren't those floating mountains absolutely loaded with superrock? I mean, why the heck else are they floating? Yeah, there's a bunch of dragons living there, but they're animals. Scare 'em off with some grazing fire, then tow the rocks away one at a time. Problem solved.

What have we learned here today, kids? Don't go to the movies with me!