Avatar: The Way of Water

I told myself that if there are flying piranhas, I'll be satisfied. There were flying pike, so I’m partially satisfied. Immediately after the screening I had sarcastic remarks like "the most expensive screensaver of all time", but I would be doing Cameron a disservice. The second Avatar is truly a visual spectacle and an incredibly beautiful and well-designed one at that must be seen in the cinema. The 3D works. In short, the technical aspect of the film lived up to the expectations built up over 13 years. What falls short of expectations is the script, which is the weakest aspect of the film, being predictable, simple and literally and figuratively built on water. It constantly relies on the characters to behave irresponsibly at any given moment in order for the plot to move anywhere. It gets absurd at times. Some characters are captured and freed so many times that the script forces one of them to gloss over it towards the end. And there is much worse nonsense. In other words, the second Avatar works well as an “experience”, but worse as a “film”. I'm willing to forgive Cameron for this one, but if he doesn't work on the script and prepare some surprises in the next installment, I won't forgive him so much again. (15/12/2022)

The technical execution is of course perfect, if not more, but I think the first film had a better story because the ecological message suits Avatar a bit better than family values. It's possible that it will work the second time around, because I had a similar experience with the first film, but now it really took me a while to get my bearings on the new characters after the initial rushed "It Happened", and before I accepted, for example, the somewhat B-movie way in which the villain Quaritch and co. return. It’s a shame. Still, Avatar: The Way of Water is definitely a proper big movie that deserves to be seen in the cinema. “Only” that it isn’t perfect. (16/12/2022)

I felt a bit as if I was watching the second episode of a series. The beginning feels somewhat rushed and hurried, and the human dimension disappears from the whole Water Journey, as all the important protagonists are already blue (and they call humans Ape). Everyone is family with everyone, and humans are a threat symbolized only by technology destroying Pandora's natural resources. Cameron keeps the pace and narrates with clarity, but the characters often behave illogically, which I rationalised by the fact that they are aliens and when they are not they are assholes. The digressions into nowhere stretch out the runtime, and while it's clear that is Kira script-armoured to support future episodes, it takes away from the main point, which is fooling around with the Pandora equivalent of Willy and diving and exploring the water world and stuff. Each Sully kid has a story to tell at the expense of Sully and Mrs. Sully. Ironically the most interesting character is the Colonel exploring new physical possibilities. There are some scenes that are breathtaking, like crushing one's own skull, the spearmen, even making friends with a whale, but overall it's terribly long and I see more naive nerds than cunning heroes in the leads. Let's hope they wise up and that it will be back to a full rating in the third one. P.S: Horner is very much missed, RIP. There’s no nice new musical theme, just a variation of the old one. (20/12/2022)

Avatar: The Way of Water has the screenwriting of a mediocre television series that’s not in any hurry to get anywhere. Not only can the story again be summed up in a single short sentence, but it’s the same as the last time and it looks like the next one won’t be any different. The unnatural movement of the blue lizards on dry land hasn’t changed since the “pilot”, so the first half of the film comes across like a video-game demo. Transitioning to the world under water is thus a tremendous upgrade. The lizards swim much more elegantly than they walk and jump, and James Cameron breathes extraordinary life into the fictional undersea plants and animals. It is beautiful and enchanting.  Luc Besson will be pleased. The human characters are also given space on the water, thus giving the digital artifice a more physical sense of drive. All of those submarines, mecha crabs and wicked scenes of “whale” hunting are uber cool, reminiscent of the action treats in Waterworld. Overall, however, the Avatar phenomenon becomes rather more of an amusement-park attraction (with the promise of a VR future) than a cinematic work in the true sense of the word. It’s kind of like Cameron’s version of a Marvel flick, but with poor character development, which is a bit of a shame. (14/12/2022)

Less water, man, less water! I’m still a big fan of the first Avatar, which worked like a euphoric trip through another world thanks to its simple narrative structure involving a hero/outsider savior of the noble savages. The second one is essentially a drawn-out and shaky soap opera about a family run by a militant father who moves to a new ’hood and can’t get used to it. Let’s leave aside that Cameron paid significantly less attention to dramatic motivations than he did to the last fish below the surface. The whole film thus seems irrational and the dialogue, which was never Avatar’s strength, is even more ear-scratchingly pedantic. As an epic tech reel, however, the film is breathtaking and I truly, royally enjoyed the underwater National Geographic in HFR. There is something truly intoxicating in the smoothness and fluidity. Unfortunately, the film’s 192 minutes are emotionally stolen by a crippled humpback whale, which has the significant advantage that it doesn’t talk (and even its retrospective is not told smoothly). Yes, Cameron is a great craftsman and illusionist, but as a storyteller, he fails here significantly in my opinion. There is no development of the mythology to speak of, as everything is just a variation, the metaphor of nature as a loving entity is becoming more and more naïve and, honestly, I would like to spend less time waiting for the third one and the fire people after this aquatherapy. During the screening, I found it difficult to push away the thought that I would have preferred to enjoy some top-quality sci-fi, which Avatar decidedly isn’t! (02/01/2023)