I would have loved it if this were an adventure movie, with Jake and his family heading out into the wide, wild world and facing struggles that had nothing to do with the human colonizers. I want more of the good character stuff, more of the spiritual and intimate stuff, more swimming with intelligent whales and less blowing stuff up. I’m tired of cartoon villains and Noble Savages and things going boom left and right. In the end, we have a film that follows many of the same beats as its predecessor, is overly-reliant on special effects instead of a good script, and has much too much going on at all times to really help establish this as a meaningful sequel that sets up a compelling franchise we want to keep diving into in three (or more?) movies.įrankly, the conflict with the humans is just dull and uninspired at this point. The writing feels much worse than in the first Avatar and that film didn’t have particularly compelling dialogue to begin with. Shut up! This isn’t how people talk, let alone Navi people raised in a traditional tribe! It’s awful. “I got you, bro!” “Yeah, bro, let’s go, bro!” “Hey cuz, let’s do this!” It reminds me of the bad dialogue in the new Willow series. It’s not like Jake is saying “bro” all the time (he often uses military jargon which makes more sense and it makes sense when the kids use it). But even if that is how kids in the US talk in 2022-it isn’t, not to this degree-it makes no sense on an alien planet. I guess it’s because Cameron and his writers think this is how the young people talk these days or something. For some reason, all the kids constantly say “bro” or “cuz” to each other. Worse, still, was the dialogue, especially among Jake’s children. My kids talked about this on our drive home after, so it’s not just your humble narrator who found this off-putting. Multiple times throughout the film there’s aggressive digital zooms that rip you out of any sense of immersion. However beautiful some of the CGI and scenery is in Way Of Water, it’s often broken up by weird editing, jarring cuts and even more jarring zooms. More than once.Īvatar: The Way Of Water Credit: 20th Century Studios The White Savior, Jake Sully, has been fully integrated into their community, but whatever interesting stuff defined them prior to his arrival, it’s all taken a back seat now to him and his family. But the bad guys are coming with their guns and their bombs and their bombs and their guns.Īnd the Navi-a crude analog for the indigenous people of our own world-remain the Noble Savage trope they were in the last film, only less interesting now. Now we have underwater scenery instead of jungles. Now we have water Navi with bigger tails who can swim underwater for a really long time. Last time it was the hilariously named Unobtanium. This time it’s a golden whale goo that halts human aging. The mustache-twirling villains are after the precious resources of Pandora. I can’t wait for video games to have graphics as crisp and high-definition!īut the story is a mess. There were some funny and heartwarming scenes. Some of the fights-while too long-were exciting and action-packed and had cool special effects. The ‘wow’ factor is gone and all I see is an expensive cartoon. It’s arrogant and self-indulgent and I think the novelty that made that okay in the first film has worn off for audiences, or at least it has for me. And he’s being indulged by the studio with this massive SFX budget, the 3D, the IMAX format, the runtime. There’s an arrogance on display that I just find very off-putting. James Cameron is being indulgent here to excess.
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