Avatar: The Way of Water. M, 192 minutes. 3 stars
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Remember Avatar? James Cameron's 2009 sci-fi fantasy film is, in dollar terms, the highest grossing film ever. But it's been a while since we were introduced to Pandora and the blue Na'vi folk who inhabit it. Will audiences still care enough to turn out in droves for this film and the multiple other sequels Cameron has planned?
I thought I was going into a 2D screening at Dendy but it turned out to be 3D so, with specs placed carefully over specs, I settled down for three-and-a-half hours of what looked like another very elaborate, very expensive animated feature, as the first one did.
The first thing to note about this movie is that it is LONG. Make sure you visit the loo beforehand. Avatar ran about three hours including ads and trailers but this one is even longer. Cameron seems to be suffering from the same problem Peter Jackson often has with bloat: the film drags slightly at times and, like The Return of the King, there's ending after ending after ending. Can there be too much of a good thing? Yes. Yes there can.
![The visual effects are impressive but the script is full of cliches. Picture Disney The visual effects are impressive but the script is full of cliches. Picture Disney](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/3ab93a28-935e-40ff-8b01-a6b2b18bc336.jpg/r156_0_4845_2633_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The first movie dealt with the "Sky People" (ie humans) coming to the moon Pandora to mine a substance called unobtanium (oh please). This time, things on Earth have deteriorated to the point that humans are returning to colonise the place. But don't expect Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) - once a human marine, now permanently in his Na'vi avatar and chief of the Omatikaya tribe - to meekly accept this.
Jake has raised a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaa). They have sons Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver, who played this character's "mother" in the previous film), and daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as Miles (Jack Champion), known as Spider, a human boy who was left behind on Pandora. Jake is leading guerrilla attacks against the humans.
Leading the human encroachment is Colonel Miles Quaritch's (Stephen Lang) avatar, who has his clone's memories and gung-ho attitude and is gunning for Jake. Spider is captured by the humans but refuses to reveal Jake's whereabouts, even under torture.
Jake decides he and his family should leave to protect the others in the tribe (noble, but of questionable efficacy) and they end up with the Metkayina reef people (who are green rather than blue) who help them despite concerns for safety (and some mocking of the newcomers' hybrid heritage). There are some problems settling in but also some high spots - one of the best sequences in the film has Lo'ak pursued in the water by one beastie before being saved by an even bigger one, with which he develops a bond. It's not spoiling anything to say that the family's move is only delaying the inevitable fight between the humans and the Pandorans.
Unlike Avatar, Cameron has a few credited co-writers this time. Titanic showed Cameron as a better director than screenwriter, particularly when it came to dialogue. The previous Avatar had the novelty of building a new world even if influences like Dances With Wolves were apparent. The additional writers here don't help and might even have made things worse. Apart from the excessive length, the script is full of cliches, with scenes and dialogue and characters reminiscent of everything from teen movies - how many times does Sully's adventurous son disobey his commands and get reprimanded? - to Cameron's own Titanic. And there are some hard to swallow elements, like Spider not being restrained while with Quaritch.
The motion-capture-created animated characters don't conquer the problems of the uncanny valley - those eyes are rather creepy.
But despite its excessive length and other shortcomings, this is an entertaining way to spend a morning (or an afternoon, or an evening). It often looks spectacular - in particular the water effects, always a challenge in animation, are excellent and there's some exciting action. If you liked the first Avatar, you'll probably like this one. I'm not sure we need to spend too much more time on Pandora, though.