Neytiri (Zo Saldana, right) teaches Jake (Sam Worthington) the skills he'll need to survive as an avatar on the planet Pandora. (Twentieth Century Fox) Neytiri (Zo Saldana, right) teaches Jake (Sam Worthington) the skills he'll need to survive as an avatar on the planet Pandora. (Twentieth Century Fox) The Vatican's newspaper and its radio station have given a lukewarm reception to the film Avatar, criticizing it for its "spiritualism linked to the worship of nature."

A red-carpet preview of Canadian James Cameron's 3-D blockbuster was held in Rome ahead of its wide release Friday in Italy.

The film is set on the fictional planet of Pandora, where humans are creating an environmentally destructive mining colony.

Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano devoted three articles to Avatar in its Sunday editions but said Cameron's plot was "bland" and unoriginal.

"He tells the story without going deep into it, and ends up falling into sappiness," it said.

The newspaper had praise for the film's visual effects, but said the story failed to touch the heart.

Bolivian leader likes movie

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, says he enjoyed Avatar’s message of saving the environment from exploitation.

The president, an Aymara Indian who was formerly head of the coca grower’s union, commented Tuesday to Bolivia's official news agency ABI.

"There is a lot of fiction in the movie, but at the same time it makes a perfect model for the struggle against capitalism and efforts to protect nature," Morales said.

"So much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions," the reviewer wrote.

Pope fights neopaganism

Vatican Radio said Avatar "cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium."

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of the need to protect the environment, but warned against "neopaganism" and the danger of turning nature into a "new divinity."

In Avatar, "nature is no longer a creation to defend but a divinity to worship," the radio reviewer said.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the reviews reflect the Pope's views on confusing nature and spirituality. However, they are independent film reviews with no input from the pontiff, he added.

The Vatican newspaper recently had praise for the long-running TV show, The Simpsons.But it was famously dismissive of the film version of The Da Vinci Code, a criticism that made very little difference to the film's box office.

Avatar has earned more than $1 billion US at the box office so far and looks set to become the highest-grossing film of all time, beating Cameron's previous record with Titanic.

With films from The Associated Press