I have seen the future of cinema, and it is “Avatar.” Brace yourself, people, The Movie Nut is about to gush.

Director James Cameron (“Aliens,” “Terminator 2,” “Titanic”) has spent much of the last decade focused on this secrecy-shrouded epic. For 10 years the clock ticked as the notoriously fussy Cameron waited for technology to catch up with his visualization of mankind’s future.

Cameron’s vision is this: 150 or so years hence we’ve ruined Earth and have ventured forth to other solar systems, looking for valuable commodities to stripmine or strip bare, leaving devastation and ruin in our wake.

Think of us as having become the alien hoard in “Independence Day,” with a few conscientious souls still ruminating about our lack of empathy.

We’ve recently discovered Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri system. Beneath the surface of Pandora lies one of the most valuable minerals of the known universe. The planet is, however, inhabited by the Na’vi, a blue and Barbie-thin race of tribal folk who exist in a sacred, harmonious peace with their environment.

Before we can extract the mineral, unobtainium (really, could we have been any less subtle there?), we must remove the Na’vi, one way or another.

So we cagey humans have genetically engineered Na’vi bodies as living avatars, plugging in our human brains to operate the creatures as we try to persuade the suspicious tribe to flee their ancestral lands while we mine the ore.

The problem is the Na’vi won’t leave, and the corporate stockholders are waiting back home, so the only recourse is, obviously, extermination.

“Avatar” is the story of one such human avatar operator, an ex-Marine named Jake (Sam Worthington), who’s been offered a can’t-say-no incentive to infiltrate the Na’vi and see “what makes them tick.”

Jake’s dilemma is that the more he gets to know the Na’vi, the less he begins to like his own species. He sees the people as noble, majestic and spiritually attuned to their world in ways that will conceivably make “Avatar” a cinematic touchstone for every New Age spiritualist alive today.

Only the most superficial among us won’t connect the dots and view “Avatar” as an astoundingly rich metaphorical poke at our collective conscience; it’s a cultural mirror that reflects our rampant consumerism, our corporate greed and America’s imperialistic aggression.

“Avatar” is also guaranteed to make every adolescent boy with the price of admission fall in love with 10-foot-tall, cat-eyed, blue women.

Okay, some detractors of this astounding film will tell you that the plot’s a rehash of half the action-adventure flicks ever made. Yeah, we’ve seen it before, but no, we’ve never seen it this way before.

And unlike the vast majority of films, “Avatar’s” journey is its own reward. The animation is literally breathtaking. The planet Pandora is a spellbinding place of extraordinary beauty and complexity. Writer-director Cameron has developed an entire alien realm that will mesmerize all but the most staunchly terra-firma prone.

And if the story seems a tad familiar? Well, once upon a time, “Star Wars” was new and refreshing—and still little more than a soap opera in space. Some may view “Avatar” as little more than “Dances With Wolves” in space but still awesome in a thousand other ways. Seen the plot before? Frankly, I doubt you’ll care.

For the record, my wife, who is cautiously suspicious of all things sci-fi, who hates senseless violence and superficial cinematic pap, loved this one.

So this isn’t just my juvenilelaced testosterone-dazed subconscious talking. By the way, there is an obligatory good versus evil battle—you know it’s coming from the film’s first moments—but again, even this climactic ruckus becomes an integral part of the journey.

Oh, hell, let me shed all professional protocol here, jump up and down and tell you: Avatar is the first movie of the rest of your life. Are you going to quibble or enjoy? Be enthralled. Be astounded. Enjoy!