The film 'Avatar' is receiving rave reviews from the critics.

Its box office takings have just overtaken 'Titanic' as the highest grossing film of all times. Both were directed by James Cameron so he must know a thing or two. What is certain, however, is that the critics and Cameron have never had to brave Stroud multi-storey car park alone and in the dark.

The film, for those who haven't seen it, is about a paraplegic marine dispatched to the planet Pandora on a unique mission when his twin brother dies. He is cloned to become an alien but comes back to headquarters for sleep and sandwiches. How you do.

He becomes torn between following orders, which generally conflict as orders do, and protecting the world in which he feels at home. I am not giving away the plot because there isn't one. Let us just say it is a remake of 'Dances with Wolves' with a clumping, humourless 'save the rainforest' message and a bit of 'Star Wars.' Jeremy Clarkson will love it as there is a lot of 'blowing things up'. Oh yes, and a sentimental love story thrown in.

None of this matters, however, as the main thrust of the film's appeal lies in its 3-D effects. Except I can remember wearing those little cardboard glasses at the cinema years ago and having to duck and dive for fear I would be hit by wayward punches and falling trees. Nothing like that now, I'm afraid.

Now I know when James Cameron sat down to make this 'epic', whatever that might mean, he didn't have me in mind and I am going to be out of step in this as in so much else, but there seems to me to be an inverse correlation between box-office takings and intelligence and subtlety in a film.

I thought 'Titanic' one of the worst films I had ever seen, so what do I know? Since it is claimed that the film is about redemption and recovery I couldn't help but wonder what my friend Dickens would have made of it, since those are the recurring themes of his work. It is my contention that were he alive now he might well be a film director and a better one than Cameron. Though after the slums of Victorian London he might be more comfortable than I in that dreadful Stroud car park.