Writer-director Marc Lawrence has come up with a cute idea for his fish-out-of-water movie “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” The plot: An estranged New York City power couple whose marriage may be headed for the rocks witnesses the murder of an international arms dealer and is sent by the FBI under the Witness Protection Program to rural Wyoming to hide out under aliases until the killer is captured.

Unfortunately, Lawrence, who wrote the scripts for Sandra Bullock’s two “Miss Congeniality” movies, doesn’t give us much that’s unpredictable in his by-the-numbers script. When the film was wrapping up — much too easily and neatly — I thought: “It can’t be over in such a simple way.” And yet it was.

That’s not to say Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker don’t try their best to breathe life into the script, which has some wry and witty lines, especially the ones delivered offhandedly by Grant, that bring chuckles if not guffaws. At the start of the film, Grant’s Paul Morgan is guiltily showering Parker’s Meryl with gifts in hopes that she’ll allow him back into their apartment after he had a one-night fling with another woman. Some of his gifts have not been thought out too well, however, such as the ice sculpture that was delivered to the apartment without checking first to see whether she was going to be home. She’s still hurting from his brief affair, however, and his attempt to smooth things over at a fancy restaurant does not go too well.

Then they witness the murder and they, and the film, are off and running to Wyoming, where the script bogs down. When Paul finds a spray can of grizzly bear repellent in a local store, you can bet that the grizzly himself won’t be too far behind.

Paul and Meryl move in with the local marshal and his wife — Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen in 10-gallon hats — who soon try to get them to fit into their new lives through lessons in target practice and horseback riding, neither of which prove to be as funny on screen as they may have been in the script.

Grant and Parker have a couple of nice moments when Paul tries to get back into Meryl’s good graces by helping her get over the hurt she still feels from his infidelity … and then she springs a surprise on him. But “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” is primarily a comedy and the sight gags just don’t live up to expectations and, rather than being frothy, it falls flat.

**Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Starring: Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Elliott, Mary Steenburgen.

Rated: PG-13, contains violence, adult themes.

mjanuson@projo.com

James Cameron invested nearly a decade and a couple of hundred million dollars in bringing “Avatar,” his state-of-the-art high-definition 3-D epic, to the screen.

Set on a strange world in the year 2154, only 40 percent of “Avatar” is live action. The rest is photo-realistic computer-generated imagery using a great deal of motion-capture technology that has the actors working on a practically bare sound stage, wearing body suits hooked up to computers to capture their movements, something used completely in “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.” But “Avatar” goes even beyond the wonders of that film and was supposed to revolutionize moviemaking. It may do just that.

On a technical level, “Avatar” looks stunning, with terrific special effects that seamlessly bring to life the enormous monsters and fanciful vegetation of the mineral-rich planet of Pandora in the realism of 3-D. It truly is a sight to behold.

And yet for all its wondrous visions and future-world technology, “Avatar” boils down to not much more than an old-fashioned cowboys and Indians Saturday matinee popcorn picture, complete with natives in feathered headdress riding horse-like creatures and shooting arrows at the greedy invading newcomers who want to grab their land for the rare mineral unobtanium (no kidding!) that lies underneath. For all the buildup, one somehow expected a little more than this. Despite all its glitz, the film at heart is a reworking of Disney’s “Pocahontas,” a cartoon that had more human feeling.

But only half the characters in “Avatar” are human, although most of the real humans in it demonstrate much less humanity than the indigenous people of Pandora, who are called the Na’vi. They are “humanoids” — blue skin, elfin ears, cat-like faces with snub noses, large luminous yellow eyes, long ultra-slim-waisted bodies … and long tails. The world of the Na’vi is lush and green, with trees that have phosphorescent branches, giant flowers that fold up into nothingness at a touch, water lilies that take flight, and animals that recall some of those found on Earth, only bigger and mostly more dangerous. These include an armor-plated hippo-size behemoth with a hammer-headed battering ram of a face; a leopard-like creature with saber-sharp teeth; flying pterodactyl-like creatures that the Na’vi ride through the skies … at least once they’ve tamed them like a cowboy tames a bucking bronco.

The invaders to Pandora are a group of mercenaries who have been sent from Earth by an anonymous corporation to mine its rich mineral lode, especially the unobtanium, which sells for $20 million a kilo. They are former Marines and soldiers for the most part, under the command of tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners Col. Miles Quadritch (Stephen Lang), who disdains the simple and naïve world of the Na’vis, who pray to the goddess of all things under the Tree of Souls and commune with nature.

The point man for the mining corporation on Pandora is Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). Opposite him is Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver, a veteran of action films that include Cameron’s own groundbreaking “Aliens”), who has invented a sort of virtual reality machine that turns out “avatars,” Na’vi-like creatures that are grown in a tank, each one controlled by a human who is cocooned inside a coffin-size chamber. The avatars can move among the Na’vi, their speech and thoughts and movements controlled by the immobile humans inside the chambers, who have a virtual-reality view of the real world outside. Grace herself has gone among the Na’vis in her avatar persona and has gained their confidence. She has learned their language, and wants to study them like an anthropologist and learn all about their culture.

Now she has been assigned a new avatar, paralyzed Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington of “Terminator Salvation”), who is a total blank regarding the avatar project. Grace looks upon him as useless. But Colonel Quadritch sees in Jake a chance to infiltrate the Na’vi camp, with Jake winning their confidence and spying on them for the colonel’s own plans.

However, Jake, as a blue-faced avatar, surprises them all and even himself. Soon after making contact with the Na’vi, he is faced with the monster terrors of Pandora and is rescued from certain death by the pretty Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). Soon he finds himself falling in love with her and, in his new Na’vi body that allows him again the freedom of walking and running, identifying with the Na’vis he is supposed to be spying on.

That’s the setup for a series of rousing, spectacularly played adventures, including an assault on the Na’vis’ Hometree village and, especially, an aerial dogfight between the warships with their heavy firepower under the command of Quadritch and members of the various Na’vi tribes who ride the flying reptiles and defend themselves with bows and arrows.

Yet despite all the visual wonders of “Avatar,” it never really captivates. Although Jake narrates the film, there’s a disconnect between him and his avatar body. One does not get caught up in the romance between him and Neytiri the way one did between Jack and Rose in Cameron’s 1997 mega-hit “Titanic,” his last feature film. The battles and exploding scenery overwhelm “Avatar.” And in the end it rings rather hollow.

***Avatar

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi.

Rated: PG-13, contains violence.

mjanuson@projo.com

It’s not your usual “road movie.”

“The Road” is the ultimate survivalist film as a boy and his father set out on a journey in a post-apocalyptic Earth where the animals and crops have died, the skies are always gray and the few remaining humans scrabble for food or have turned to cannibalism.

“The Road” is based on a book by Cormac McCarthy, author of “No Country for Old Men,” and it’s even bleaker than that dog-eat-dog hunt for a fortune in drug money. “The Road” may be one of the bleakest movies ever made, certainly the bleakest of this century. The nearly relentless grimness of its story may turn some people off. Yet the solid acting and the unnerving premise are certain to grip those who venture into this film, which is the flip side of something like “Zombieland” … but without the zombies.

Interestingly, the cause of the worldwide cataclysm is never explained. There’s just a strong rumble at the start of the film as Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron, who play the central couple in the story, look warily outside and later talk about seeing a flash of light. There’s no apparent effect from radiation, however, so a nuclear war seems to be out. I vote for some giant meteor crashing into Earth, the kind that sent a dark cloud over much of the planet, wiping out the dinosaurs and many plant species.

Director John Hillcoat flashes back several times to Mortensen and Theron’s relationship, which is a bit confusing at first. Most of the film, however, revolves around the relationship between Mortensen’s Papa and his unnamed son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), especially after Theron’s character gives up on life and walks out one night into the bitter cold and blackness, never to be seen again.

Now father and son are on the road, trying to avoid the gun-toting gangs of thugs who steal food or, worse, resort to cannibalism to survive. The boy keeps seeking reassurance from his father that, “We’re the good guys, right?” even as they face starvation but vow never to eat another human to survive. They travel across a landscape decimated by the cataclysm: bare trees, gloomy skies and the occasional earthquake. They have one pistol with two bullets, just in case, as the father counsels his son on suicide.

Because of the circumstances, Hillcoat maintains tension throughout “The Road,” even though there are only a few times when father and son find themselves in truly dire circumstances. But there’s always the sense that something terrible could happen at any time. One of those times they encounter a gang of killers. Later they believe they’ve found safety in a big old house, but make a grisly discovery inside, which is the film’s one big scary sequence. It’s a nightmare world made real and shot almost exclusively in browns and grays. When the father dreams to a happy past and the screen is suddenly sun-drenched in color, it’s startling.

Even when they find a human who seems harmless enough, such as an old man who calls himself Eli (Robert Duvall) and carries the pain of the past, there’s always a sense of unease. This is a world where no one can be trusted. Mortensen’s Papa is edgy, furtively glancing around like an animal fearing it will become prey, making us nervous as well. Constantly on the run, Papa tries to comfort the boy as best he can. In the film’s big emotional moment, Mortensen is superb without resorting to sentimentality.

Eleven-year-old Australian actor Smit-McPhee is a find as the son, innocent and touching. He gives the boy the heart that’s missing from most of the other characters that have been deadened by the end of their world. The boy is the hope of the future … if he can live long enough to see it.

****The Road

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce.

Rated: R, contains violence, unsettling images, nudity, profanity.

mjanuson@projo.com