James Cameron’s 2009 film, Avatar, still remains as a gigantic piece of cinematic history after becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time. Regardless of how people would view it from a narrative or character standpoint (as those qualities in the film are pretty abhorrent), it can’t be ignored how impressive Avatar was and even still is from a visual perspective, with the alien environment, dramatic presentation and memorable cinematic spectacle enhanced by the use of 3D effects being enough to hypnotize several thousands of people across the globe. Despite this benchmark, there was some skepticism when it was announced a decade later that Avatar would be getting a sequel in 2022. Even if people adored Avatar and the alien world of Pandora at the time of its release, the time apart could’ve softened the hype for any future films, and with the trailers leaving people slightly interested but not to an extreme level, it made for a cautious opening weekend. More than a decade after the first film, human turned Na’vi, Jake Sully (played again by Sam Worthington) is now the leader of his Na’vi tribe that he was brought into (because of course he is) and has started a family with the former chief’s daughter, Neytiri (played again by Zoe Saldana). With five children under their belt, which includes sons Neteyam and Lo’ak (voiced by Jamie Flatters and Britain Dalton), adopted daughter Kiri (played distractingly by Sigourney Weaver) who was an immaculate birth from the inert avatar of Grace Augustine (which Sigourney Weaver originally played) youngest daughter Tuk (played by Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and semi-adopted human boy Spider (played by Jack Champion), Jake and Neytiri’s lives are thrown back into chaos when the humans (or Sky People as they are so pompously called) return and reek more havoc on Pandora, with an Avatar-clone of Colonel Miles Quaritch (played again by Stephen Lang) serving as the leader. With Spider taken prison by Quaritch (who is actually his biological father) and the Sully’s being forced to leave their home, they find refuge with a water-based tribe led by chief leader, Tonowari and his wife Ronal (played by Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet), although they are treated unfavorably by some due to their human heritage. Having to relearn a whole new way of living and to be taught the way of water, the Sully’s will need to adapt to their new environment, not realizing that they are still being tracked and are going to bring war to another group of Na’vi. Avatar: The Way of Water managed to secure itself over two billion dollars at the box office which prevented it from flopping against its massive $350–460 million budget, with many critics and audiences viewing it with as much if not higher praise than its previous. Despite this, this film is so identical to its original film (down to its pros and its cons), that it’s incredibly frustrating above anything else and does nothing outside of the visuals to leave a genuine impression on people.

Nobody pretended like the story of Avatar was anything revolutionary. While people definitely got into the first film and treasured it for its world, its visual style, and its immersive technology, there was always an element of side-stepping when discussing the plot, as its blatantly obvious that it was tired, bland, lacking in investment and was a recycled formula that several films had already ran into the dirt. An environmental-based ‘’nature vs the evils of man’’ story line was one that already got tiring all those years ago and it had seemingly died out after Avatar, but this sequel recycles it once again with another overly preachy, needlessly on-the-nose and now excruciatingly outdated plot that strangely feels over-bloated in one instance and severely under-written in other parts. Its honestly a little insulting how little this movie tries to be different from the first film in terms of its narrative structure written by Cameron along with Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno. Despite its large length, nothing about this narrative is surprising, offers up anything new, creates something that feels unique to its brand, or even attempts to shake up components that are obviously stale because it clearly doesn’t care about what its saying and is just using it as a vehicle to show off some more visuals. Its frustratingly similar and made even worse due to the jump in time between films not preventing any form of replication. For a three-hour long film, there are times when you can really feel the length and ironically the worse instance is in the opening act, as the first 40 minutes feel awkwardly delivered and filled with clunky exposition, rushed yet somehow still slow pacing, and a dilemma and situation that could’ve been established easily in 10 mins. The script for this film really is the worst aspect of this picture; with dialogue that feels childish, very un-alien like and a little too modern (hearing these alien creatures use terms like ‘’dude’’ and ‘’bro’’ just feels a little random), the exposition is horribly lazy, any attempts at emotional moments are so sporadic and hollow that it never hits the mark, and it wastes a lot of what are honestly decent ideas  in exchange for giving great focus to its lazy themes and obvious commentary. While James Cameron is known for being an innovative director when it comes to technology and wanting to push the boundaries of cinematic presentation, he might be a little behind when it comes to his stories and writing, as this plot feels decades old, and the script in many ways feels even older with how the people talk, interact and change. It feels degrading to have another story preaching about subject matters it is clearly not intelligent enough to talk about and then pretend it’s saying something new when in reality, its saying nothing new and just comes across as lazy and even a little insulting. With this in mind, the actual moments spent with this water tribe is easily the best and most engaging part of the film (ironically the part with the least amount of story and/or talking) and while the film wastes a lot of its ideas, there are at least a few elements that have the potential to be interesting as opposed to the first which had no real ideas outside of its environment.

Along with the recycled story, the first Avatar had recycled characters, with archetypes so generic and so lacking identity that it was almost impossible to care about any of them whether they were human or Na’vi. It’s not much different in this film with similarly uninteresting roles with very dated character arches and minimal to no personalities whatsoever, but in comparison to the first film, it handles this aspect a little bit better. Jake Sully was useless as a lead in the first film; he was generic, he was bland, he had no defining characteristics, Sam Worthington’s performance wasn’t very good, and he just adopted the typical ‘’white savior’’ archetype that was sadly quite prevalent still in that time period, but within this film, he’s gone from being annoyingly boring to just boring. He still not interesting, but he’s much more inoffensive in this film probably due to his limited dialogue, screen time and overall presence. It’s very similar to Stephen Lang in this; in the first film, his character was so cartoonishly written and so pathetically generic that it was almost comically delivered, whereas here, it’s still equally as one-note and laughable but there’s at least a hint more awareness of his role and a bit more passion put into creating a character which makes him a little less insufferable. Neytiri has gone from a generic ‘’Pocahontas-esque’’ character who had the closest thing to investment in the first film, to just being a housewife who kills things and cries all the time, easily the worse handling of a character and takes an otherwise already generic character who at least had some cool elements and just made her less than a side character (even though upon inspecting the film, a lot of its faults could’ve been readjusted if she was just given the lead mantle as the set-up was laid out right there yet never taken advantage of). The major focus of the film seems to be on the kids, and while most of them are interchangeable and not very unique in terms of personality, they are at least handled better than the rest of the cast, aside from the oldest son and the youngest daughter who literally contribute nothing and could’ve been written out altogether. If there was any investment in any character, it is with the son Lo’ak, whose story about impressing his father means nothing, but he at least gets a nice connection with an outcasted whale-like creature, and Kiri, whose unknown parentage and spiritual connection to Pandora has room to grow into something fun.

Much like the first film, the biggest draw for this film was with its technology and the world of Pandora. For all the film’s faults, the environment of Pandora was a pretty cool place to be in and the visuals made that experience extra impressive through its breathtaking scale and 3D presentation which in turn reinvigorated people’s interest in something like 3D. Even the CG from the first film has held up quite nicely in comparison to other films that used similar techniques, so it was quality that both lovers and haters agreed was impressive and James Cameron definitely noticed this and put most of his time, money and attention on improving said technology (that was the reason the film took so long and how it became one of the most expensive films ever made). There was a lot of focus put into making the motion-capture work underwater as it would be the main focus of this follow-up, and it took approximately a year and a half just to get that technology down. Even though this feels like an advertising plug to draw people in, it seemed to work as everybody who’s seen the film has specifically praised the visual evolution from one film to the other, and they really are right in that regard. For a franchise that already had impressive looking visuals, this sequel truly does take it to another level with truly fantastic looking sequences and creatures that really feel like an impressive next step in how to portray totally computer-generated characters. While the Na’vi were well done previously but still felt like an effect, this film genuinely blurs that line as they legitimately look and feel real (which is quite astounding given their designs) and the way the film is shot and executed by cinematographer Russell Carpenter, really allows for a lot of great visuals both on land and underwater. The water tribe of Na’vi also look pretty cool; having a distinct coloration and design against the tree based Na’vi and their distinct connection with water and its inhabitants leads to a few nice scenes. While they can sometimes be portrayed as a little stereotypical (whatever Kate Winslet is doing, it does not work at all), they make for a generic, but good enough group to be around.

Avatar: The Way of Water is going to satisfy people who are looking for something similar to the first film. There are many that still adore that movie flaws and all, and clearly there is a specific quality about this franchise that makes people forgive some of their glaring issues in exchange for enjoying the good qualities, and despite how limiting that is, it might be an element people just have to accept. They originally had little faith that Cameron would get his other two or three films out of this with interest in Avatar seemingly dying off after a decade of silence, but the film’s box office proved otherwise.  Hopefully, this will lead way to improvements in the writing, narrative, and characters, as those are still glaringly flawed in almost every regard, but on a technical level, it is worth checking out it alone and the film will more than likely win you over on that level regardless. Avatar has potential but continuously seems to waste it on outdated messages, lazy storytelling, and uninteresting characters, but with more time to grow and maybe better screenwriters behind the belt (you don’t want the people who wrote Jurassic World and the live action Mulan on your team), Pandora could evolve into something worth paying investment into.

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