James Cameron is a man with a vision. Just to clarify, that doesn’t make him a visionary director necessarily, although many may think so – no doubt himself included – but he is obsessed with wringing as much as humanly possible out of his latest vision, the Avatar saga.

This then is the latest instalment in the aging franchise, that sees the return of the dreadlocked blue-skinned race, the Na’vi and co.

It’s not long after their last battle and the Na’vi are licking their wounds, and Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) mourn the death of their son.

Their adopted family member Spider (Jack Champion), and his being a human, is causing further issues, as he has to rely on breathing equipment to survive in their environ.

Jake decides that the best thing to do is to return Spider back to his own kind, where he can literally survive in an atmosphere, so they decide the whole family will join a merchant convoy just leaving, to take him back.

However, on the journey, they are ambushed by the Mangkwan, led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), who destroy the convoy, causing the family to splinter and run. They are then hunted, by the Mangkwan, and Jake’s old comrade-turned-adversary Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who has mission of his own.

If you have put yourself through the first two, then you know exactly what to expect with this one. Cameron twiddles his CGI knobs to make a colourful world, where a few back and forth chases take place. And that’s about it.

It seems either the director believes – or has been made to believe, that he’s making something important here. But let’s be perfectly clear, Cameron is no Tolkien, and his world building skills are simply computer generated.

Sure he wants the audience to believe that it has importance, including such themes as spirituality and the importance of nature, whilst still having that human touch with characters that say ‘bro’ and ‘baby’. Genius.

It’s also criminally long, at around three hours and twenty minutes, where at times it just feels like someone playing a video game, which let’s face it, isn’t far off the truth; Cameron gets to play with his virtual world, and for some bizarre reason, audiences flock to it. More fool them.

It isn’t just an instalment, but an entirely hollow franchise, with flashes of style over no substance whatsoever. And of course King Cameron isn’t done yet, with the plan to frivolously waste his talents on at least a further two sequels in this very dull world he created.

It may well be a box office hit, bizarrely, but it’s also a predictable and shallow experience, and will be remembered in history as such.