Technically gorgeous, but the story is similarly emotionally manipulative without really thinking through the colonial themes, making it recursive of the first - even with the exact same antagonists, which get more screen time despite that being used little to no effect, except to perpetuate similar circumstances for the next movie. How exasperating. LET THE BAD GUY GO FFS. The kid saying bro every five seconds was excruciating. Why would they have the same vernacular as 20th century people? Why would the kid have that affectation when no one else uses it? It's so stupid.

It is bloated, indulgent, and repeats the same criticisms with a bullheaded script that feels like it knows that and spits in the face of it. The only reason to see the movie, as with the first, is the CGI. If you've seen any movie about outsiders living with indigenous people threatened by the same culture, you've seen this movie.

Also, if I have.

It's a James Cameron film, so it's impressive. The special effects, camerawork, world-building, and action were all off the charts. But Avatar: The Way of Water struggles like its predecessor in the story and character development departments. In fact, the story of The Way of Water is almost identical to the first Avatar. Instead of humans learning to be Na'vi and then fighting Stephen slang, a family of forest Na'vi learns to be ocean Na'vi and then fight Stephen Lang. All the strengths and weaknesses of the first movie are back in this one, with the bonus of being compared to the original. It really is a visual feast and special effects masterpiece, but just like the first Avatar, that's all it is.

This sequel has a design and look that matches the first film but it no longer has the same impact. While the ocean setting brings new creatures for us to marvel at - it isn't as breathtakingly new as it was 13 years ago.

There are a lot of action set pieces and all of them are great to watch, although they feel either repetitive or borrowed from previous Cameron films like Titanic.

For me, bringing back both the Grace character and the evil colonel felt too much. One of them, Grace (Sigorney Weaver), would have been sufficient, the Colonel could easily have been a brother like in Die Hard 3, although this would require additional story changes regarding the adolescent « Spider » character. But that would have been better than the whole « importance of Family » theme running through everything. Just too much of that for me, as well as let's make sure only incidental characters die.

The 3D and higher frame rate aspects added nothing extra for me, and at times made it feel like video and not like a real film - although interestingly this video feel was not always there like in the Hobbit films, but would come and go.

The story of this film becomes a battle between Jake and the cloned Colonel, with the rest of the global aspect of Pandora verses Humans dropping by the wayside. It would have been more interesting if the new antagonist, not a clone of the Colonel, disobeys his orders from the General and goes AWOL to hunt down Jake - like Captain Ahab and the white whale.