James Cameron's Action Attack

James Cameron has branded action movies "chopped salad".

The 'Avatar' director insists that many modern filmmakers try to cram too much into a single scene, making it difficult for an audience to understand - or care - about what is happening to the characters.

He said: "There are two things missing when I watch a lot of action these days.

"One is that I don't care about the characters, and there isn't a lucidity to what is happening - what is the goal, what are these people trying to accomplish?

James Cameron's action attack

"The other thing that gets ignored is the length of time it takes a virgin pair of eyeballs and visual cortex to take in an image, assimilate it, relate it to the images that have gone before. Lots of action films these days have many small cuts in a sequence. It's just chopped salad."

The 'Titanic' filmmaker says he now uses mirrors to ensure he re-watches each scene he films with fresh approach.

He explained to Total Film magazine: "I'm giving a trick away here, but I just flop the work print in the projector and watch the film in mirror image. You really see where your eyeballs have been conditioned to look in a place, but now it's happening over there."