MOVIE REVIEW – Avatar: The Way of Water is far too long at nearly three hours, and the relatively simple story is stretched like a pastry, with a terribly drawn-out exposition sequence in the middle of the film. However, the sequel to Avatar is stunningly beautiful, with 3D visuals that are also the swan song of technology, as true 3D films are no longer made.

It is undeniable that James Cameron’s films are extraordinary technical achievements, and Avatar stands out even more. When it was first released in 2009, it was a quantum leap forward in the world of computer-generated fantasy and sci-fi filmmaking. Cameron has always been an obsessive director, and for over a decade he poured that obsession into Avatar and its sci-fi fantasy world, Pandora. And his obsession paid off: the first Avatar was the biggest box-office success of all time, giving Cameron the power to do whatever he wanted. And while it was a long time coming, it’s clear that he wants to keep making Avatar films, and there are several sequels in various stages of development. Whether or not this is a good thing – for the audience, not Cameron – depends on what we think of the first Avatar.

A visual orgy, a swirling story

Of course, there’s plenty of time to ponder whether Avatar can be considered a foxhole with the sequels, but in any case, the franchise is back to it now with Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron’s return to it with a huge, overstuffed, overlong, yet thrilling and eye-popping sci-fi adventure. The latest Avatar is a spectacle in every sense of the word; an imaginative, beautiful, action-packed endeavour that, while genuinely exciting overall, often had me wondering during the press screening, my goodness, how much more of this is to come.

So we have a real Cameron movie magic on our hands; on the one hand, the new Avatar movie is even more of a visual orgy in 3D, with some of the best action sequences you’ll ever see. At the same time, the story picks up so slowly – and the action and story both sit for an hour in the middle of the film – that there isn’t a sci-fi or Avatar fan who doesn’t at least mentally watch it. It’s also fortunate that the film really kicks into gear for the final hour: the last hour of the three-hour film is essentially one long action sequence. But it’s clear that for that hour and a half, Cameron concentrates more on the beauty and grandeur of Pandora (a place that doesn’t exist), while giving the story the impression of a drawn-out exposition.

Say hi to the Sully family

The fact that Pandora doesn’t exist makes Avatar: The Way of Water even more compelling, because we don’t doubt this world for a moment. It’s so shockingly lifelike and so meticulously crafted by Cameron – who immersed his actors in real water for many of the film’s underwater scenes – that it feels completely alive. The same cannot be said for the Na’vi, the langaleta, blue natives of the world. The motion capture allows them to have expressive faces, often identical to those of the actors playing them, but the creatures are still too large and somehow awkward to be visually truly lifelike. This is not a problem, of course – they are, after all, extraterrestrials.

It’s been over a decade since the first film, and human Marine-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is being hailed as a hero. He’s settled down with Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and the couple now have a family of children – the confident eldest son, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters); the insecure second child, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), who just can’t seem to win his father’s approval; young daughter Tuk (Lo’akTrinity Jo-Li Bliss); and adopted teenage daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver). Why Weaver plays the teenager is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly not as convincing as it should be. We watched the film with Hungarian subtitles, but the character’s original voice is Weaver’s, who simply sounds too old to be a teenager. Kiri, however, is a special child; an outsider who feels a deep connection to the planet and its mystical forces. This time, it came across better with the Hungarian dubbing than with the veteran actress of the original – 73 years old…

While the Sully family has lived in harmony for the past decade, that is about to change. Because the evil Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who was very much dead in the first film, is back – living in his own Na’vi avatar, along with several of his Marine buddies. Quaritch and his companions are tasked with – you guessed it – chasing Jake, which means Jake and his family decide to flee their forest home for another part of Pandora, where the land is not the land but the water.

The stunning beauty (and occasional boredom) of Pandora

Cameron clearly loves the waters of the sea, whether it’s “The Abyss”, “Titanic” or his own real-life underwater adventures. So it’s no surprise that the watery parts of The Waterway are the most impressive in the film. Cameron finds magic under the waves and on top of the waves. And that’s where Avatar is at its best, where it shows us new things – an extremely exciting undersea world that doesn’t exist in our world, but still feels believable. There’s a pod of telepathic whale-like creatures swimming in the seas, but we also get to marvel at all sorts of other forms of undersea life. And then there are the ‘sea’ Na’vi, who live near the water and are subtly different from their land-based counterparts – their tails and hands have evolved to resemble fins, so they can swim faster and better than Jake and his kids.

Speaking of children, they become our main characters as the film progresses. Jake is still there, but we won’t see Worthington as a man, which is fine, because his stiff acting in the previous film wasn’t very brilliant – as Na’vi he’s much more convincing here. But Saldaña’s Neytiri seems almost a supporting character until the final act, as do newcomers like Kate Winslet, who plays Ronal, a somewhat forgettable member of the water clan (perhaps she’ll have more to do in the sequel?). The focus on the Sully kids could have backfired – kids can be annoying! – but it works here. We like the Sully kids and become absorbed in their story, especially Lo’ak’s frequent failed attempts to impress his heroic father.

A simple but overwrought, drawn-out story

It all unfolds at a very leisurely, even sluggish pace. The film’s story is also pretty flat overall, but that’s not even the problem, it’s that the plot is too slow. I have nothing against long films, as long as they are well-paced or tell a complex, interesting story with well-developed subplots and characters, but Avatar: The Way of Water is just terribly draggy while telling a fairly simple story. Cameron gives us long scenes in which the characters bask in the beauty, and of course, it is truly beautiful. But after a while, it all becomes somehow both artificial and contrived, to the point where we get tired of all the visual orgy in the long run, while almost nothing of substance happens for a long time.

Fortunately, it all builds towards an hour-long action sequence involving ships, whales and guns – lots and lots of guns. The villains remain pretty one-dimensional – except for an amusing but extremely brief appearance by Eddie Falco, who plays a marine who is shown kick-boxing in a giant robot suit. The soldiers’ personalities in general don’t really matter, as Cameron wants to kill them off one by one in grand, spectacular fashion as the waterlogged battle unfolds.

Only one negative character’s personality is really fleshed out and, paradoxically, he also drags the story down somewhere. It is Stephen Lang’s character, Colonel Miles Quaritch’s anti-hero ‘reborn’ in the body of Na’vi, who has ‘inherited’ the Colonel’s memories – but has also been given a new identity, so he is not quite a Ghost in the Shell. This would be an exciting concept, the problem is that because of certain story choices (which I don’t want to spoil) and dialogue, it is simply illogical, his character doesn’t fit together. This is also extremely problematic because the whole revenge story rests somewhere on his motivations. In the aforementioned Ghost in the Shell, or Netflix’s Altered Carbon, this ‘another human consciousness come to life in a new body’ kind of story was much more logically and well developed, so it’s a shame that it’s not quite there, even though Stephen Lang’s superb acting skills would have been up to the task.

The 3D swan song

The story, full of clichés and sometimes not very logically developed characters, is a bit too simple, clichéd and overstretched, so it’s not very steely, but there’s no doubt that the stunning 3D visuals and action are not to be complained about. Cameron is a master of 3D filmmaking and it bleeds my heart that this technology is actually a thing of the past in television and video games – without really exploiting it. That’s why Avatar is so valuable as a visual film, that the 3D sci-fi visual world has been so stunningly professionally realised.

So, Avatar: The Way of Water remains a true spectacle film in its second part. With its clichéd, far-fetched, somewhat flat story, don’t expect any depth like Frank Herbert (Dune) or Stanislav Lem, but let’s be honest: we don’t sit in Avatar for the story, but for the stunning 3D sci-fi visual orgy and the first-rate action – and we can’t complain about that at all.

-BadSector-