My Review of "Avatar: The Way of Water"

Avatar: The Way of Water has finally arrived in 2022. It's been thirteen years since the original movie came out. That movie was a visual spectacle so we expected nothing less with this one. I'm glad to say that it really is. The problem that I have with this movie comes from a culmination of a whole bunch of small things that added up.

This movie starts off years after the events of the first movie. There's a bit of narration to explain the exodus of humans from the world of Pandora. Not all humans have left but only the "greedy" ones I guess. This movie constantly paints everything in black and white for all to understand.

Jake and Neytiri are now proud parents of a big brood of kids. They have two sons who I can't tell one from another. One is older and the other is younger I guess. They have a daughter and an adopted daughter. Their adopted daughter is the daughter of their good doctor friend from the original movie that turned into an avatar. They don't know who the father is but she seems like an exact clone of the doctor in avatar form.

They also have a human friend named Spider. Quite honestly they didn't need to have this character in the movie. By the end of the movie you'll realize he was only added as a character to help push a sequel to this franchise.

All is good in Pandora until the menacing humans come back to Pandora. This time it's for revenge. They want to kill Jake for what he did to them. We have the old bad guys but their memories and consciousness have been transferred to new Avatar bodies. I know this is a lot to take in but it's also a science fiction movie so this didn't bother me too much.

The main story is Jake and his family trying to escape the evil terror of their old enemies seeking revenge. Little do they realize the only way to stop their advances is to murder them. It's a simple storyline and easy to follow I guess. A little too simple so they made a whole slew of side stories to go with it to build upon the new characters.

Visually I didn't think the CGI could get that much better but it actually did. These Avatars and everything in the world really look like they're real beings. There are a lot of subtle nuances that help with this CGI trickery and they do it really well in this movie. I also have to add that you'll have to watch it in the theatre with high frame rate to really get a sense of the realism that they added to this movie.

Of course a lot of people aren't fans of the high frame rate. I honestly believe that all action movies should be placed in high frame rate or else we just see a bunch of blur on the screen. That's another article to write some day.

The problem with this movie is that it has a whole bunch of problems with the world consistencies and believability. This is a hard pill to swallow because James Cameron is a guy for details and he took 13 years to get this sequel into the movie theatres.

I had a problem with the fact that we totally forgot why humans were on Pandora in the first place. They were mining for fuel and now they don't want that fuel anymore. This time They want to hunt for Jake. You can argue that they want to terraform it for humans to live on. They did mention that. The humans are all over the place with this one.

At one point they're hunting for the whale like creatures because it's the fountain of youth. Get it together people. In that day in age you'd think they'd be able to synthesize the formula of whatever that whale is creating. I mean they can create avatars and place our human consciousness in there. Also what's the point of fountain of youth when they can just create another human body and transfer your consciousness to it? So many questions and no answers.

There's also the fact that the avatars can breathe underwater making the last portion of the movie kind of nonsensical. They could easily grab all the fake avatars and pull them under water and drown them because they're not trained. Then again it seems like no one can actually drown in this movie. It's really weird. I don't know what was going on.

The movie goes into a lot of tired tropes as well. We always have our irrational teenagers that want to look for trouble everywhere they go. No matter how many times Jake tells his kids to do anything they just go do it. Rationally the kids are idiots as well. Oh yeah I'll take on mercenaries all by myself. No problem. Pandora is in desperate need of some psycho therapists.

The list goes on and this all plays out in a three hour movie. I'm starting to wonder when is enough. We're starting to get 4 hour long movies. We don't have half a day to view your spectacles people. If they're that long make them into TV shows.

Overall, this movie is more like an amusement park ride. There are a ton of thrills if you see it the right way. It's all visual stimulation as well. Watching it as a popcorn movie flick can be some fun. Don't think and just enjoy the ride. I'm not sure how well it'll translate to home viewing but watch it while you can in the theatres. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. It's weird because I still recommend this movie but only in the theatres in high frame rate 3D.