Seeing Avatar: The Way of Water is almost required viewing, if only for the predictably ground-breaking special FX and nostalgia of the blue people's world. If you liked the first one, you will like this one. And if there's one criticism that sticks out most to me, that is it: it caters completely and wholly to its original audience.
Sure, the visuals are STUNNING. The incredible world building here is worth the price of admission, full stop. Emotionally, thematically, it feels like it fits behind the original with characters coming through as you'd hope they would. But, and this is a big "but", you've seen a lot of this before. Which may not be a bad thing if you want to see it all again.
Beautiful new environment? Check. New creatures they must learn to bond with? Check. Even one big creature that is a defining part of the climax? Check. Bring back previous cast (even in ridiculous ways)? Check. Humans are still (mostly) greedy and stupid? Check. Political leanings all here? Anti-colonizing, eco-friendly, anti-government, anti-military, anti-fishing industry, dominant white people evil (unless they begin taking on the forms and traits of the indigenous)? Check. Some stunning action scenes? Absolutely. Did it make me cry? More than once. Did it have a heart-warming central theme? Yes.
It's good. It's well made, predictable and bankable. Watch it.
But...
Visuals aside, it's chock full of plot oddities, retreaded material and sometimes highly stereotypical characters. The choice to use Weaver's voice for multiple characters gave an "uncanny valley vocal" feel to the performance, and there's not a lot of surprises (a few, yes) along the way in terms of writing and performance.
I somehow felt like I was watching a 2023 remake of the original, with different environments and larger cast.
There's a lot to love here. A lot to praise for a cast and production team full of ground-breaking everything. It's awesome. But it suffers from something that movies like The Matrix struggled to overcome, which is that the original was so groundbreaking, so different-mostly visually- that's it's nearly impossible to recapture that vibe in the sequel. It feels like a derivative of itself.
I was happy to see them focus on family dynamics and work a little harder on character building this time out, but if you want to be truly surprised, this isn't the movie you're looking for.
Sure, the visuals are STUNNING. The incredible world building here is worth the price of admission, full stop. Emotionally, thematically, it feels like it fits behind the original with characters coming through as you'd hope they would. But, and this is a big "but", you've seen a lot of this before. Which may not be a bad thing if you want to see it all again.
Beautiful new environment? Check. New creatures they must learn to bond with? Check. Even one big creature that is a defining part of the climax? Check. Bring back previous cast (even in ridiculous ways)? Check. Humans are still (mostly) greedy and stupid? Check. Political leanings all here? Anti-colonizing, eco-friendly, anti-government, anti-military, anti-fishing industry, dominant white people evil (unless they begin taking on the forms and traits of the indigenous)? Check. Some stunning action scenes? Absolutely. Did it make me cry? More than once. Did it have a heart-warming central theme? Yes.
It's good. It's well made, predictable and bankable. Watch it.
But...
Visuals aside, it's chock full of plot oddities, retreaded material and sometimes highly stereotypical characters. The choice to use Weaver's voice for multiple characters gave an "uncanny valley vocal" feel to the performance, and there's not a lot of surprises (a few, yes) along the way in terms of writing and performance.
I somehow felt like I was watching a 2023 remake of the original, with different environments and larger cast.
There's a lot to love here. A lot to praise for a cast and production team full of ground-breaking everything. It's awesome. But it suffers from something that movies like The Matrix struggled to overcome, which is that the original was so groundbreaking, so different-mostly visually- that's it's nearly impossible to recapture that vibe in the sequel. It feels like a derivative of itself.
I was happy to see them focus on family dynamics and work a little harder on character building this time out, but if you want to be truly surprised, this isn't the movie you're looking for.