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Movie Review: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

Kaley Chun , Senior Staff Writer Jan 22, 2023

After watching the film in three different formats, Senior Staff Writer Kaley Chun explains the unique spectacle of “Avatar: The Way of Water” and the factors that led to its massive box office success.

I was a kid when “Avatar” was released in 2009, but it remained a big part of my life. A couple of years ago, my family babysat my cousins and we could not decide on a movie. My parents had finally escaped the period where their kids wanted to exclusively watch children’s movies and they were not about to go back, so my mom said, “Put on ‘Avatar.’” My cousins were about 12 and eight years old, and they had never seen a PG-13 movie before. I worried it might be too violent for them, but as soon as we pressed play, they were completely engrossed by the new world of plants, animals, and people unfurling in front of them. “Avatar” had been in my life for longer than I could remember, but rewatching it next to two awestruck children reminded me how powerful the film is when viewed for the first time.

Unlike anything put to screen before, “Avatar” utilizes immersive visual effects to tell the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an ex-marine sent to the moon Pandora for its natural resources. Through the use of a remotely-controlled avatar, Sully encounters the Na’vi, a native race with a spiritual connection to nature. As he is monitored by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and taught the ways of the Na’vi by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), Sully finds himself torn between loyalty to his own people and the new worldview he has discovered. The film became a massive hit that people went to see week after week, and “Avatar” grew to become the highest-grossing film of all time .

Despite this overwhelming success, the development of “Avatar: The Way of Water” would remain a mystery for the next 13 years. What was it going to be about? Was it going to be made at all? Director James Cameron announced in 2010 that he wanted to make several sequels, but after the record-shattering release of “Avatar,” Cameron’s legendary filmography came to a halt. In the place of tangible releases came reports that he was working on something: a film that would take five years to shoot, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and push the bounds of trailblazing technology even further than its predecessor. More than a decade later, this film became “Avatar: The Way of Water.” 

In the sequel, humans have returned to Pandora to eradicate Na’vi insurgency and establish a new home for mankind. As a result, Jake Sully and his family must flee the forest and hide among the Metkayina, a clan of Na’vi who are deeply connected to the ocean and its creatures. As the Sully family adapts to this new way of life, they are hunted by Quaritch, who was killed by Neytiri and has returned as an avatar in search of revenge. When written plainly, this plot is repetitive and uninspiring. It involves many of the same building blocks that supported the first “Avatar.” Why, then, has this film become the highest-grossing film of 2022 ? First of all, the film has had good marketing and timing. Many people saw “Avatar: The Way of Water” around the holidays with family and friends. However, that cannot be the only explanation, because not every film released in December crosses the threshold of two billion dollars.

Ask anyone who has seen the film, and the obvious answer is that “Avatar: The Way of Water” provides a viewing experience that once again reinvents what CGI, motion capture, and 3D technology are able to accomplish. In spite of its reductive plot, “Avatar: The Way of Water” is breathtaking. It begins in the familiar forests of Pandora, then moves with the Sully family as they dive through crystal waters, bounce across woven floors, and swim with fantastical ocean creatures. Though many consumers consider long runtimes a burden, the benefit is that “Avatar: The Way of Water” never rushes toward the next scene. On the contrary, each character is given time to interact with their surroundings, which creates an unusual balance where the film’s plot is less important than its visual world-building aspects.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” does have flaws: it is long and slow and was made without considering many criticisms aimed at the first film. It introduces more characters than can properly be characterized, leaving the plot shallow and scattered. However, this film’s massive traction indicates this is still the type of film moviegoers are willing to see. Why? Because people will go to theaters for visual quality despite a lackluster storyline, and they crave films that can be watched and discussed communally. People want spectacle, imagination, and themes that can connect to life even when the characters are giant blue aliens. Though it is not a perfect film, “Avatar: The Way of Water” uses its vibrant colors, textures, and sounds to accomplish something that most CGI fails to do today: it captures the childlike wonder of watching something really good for the first time and thinking that it might be one of the most beautiful films you’ve ever seen.

Grade : B+ Directed by : James Cameron Starring : Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang Release Date : December 16, 2022 Rated : PG-13 Image courtesy of Cleveland.com

• James Cameron
• Sam Worthington
• Stephen Lang
• Zoe Saladana

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Avatar: The Way of Water Critical Reactions Vary More Than the Frame Rates

It’s here. Earthling movie critics are officially versed in water and its ways as early reviews for Avatar: The Way of Water begin to come in. It’s no surprise that the technical aspects of James Cameron’s passion project remain marvelous , particularly in the rendering of alien aquatic life and action sequences. However, critical reaction to Cameron’s variable frame rate … varies. Then there are the more basic storytelling aspects in which the sequel appears to improve on the original, at least to some critics, who are invested in the story of Na’vi teens and Pandora’s hyperintelligent space whales. Others find the plot overly familiar and the dialogue rote. Below, critics who sat through three hours of Avatar: The Way of Water live to tell a whale of a tale.

“For starters, the effects work is unbelievable; I still haven’t entirely wrapped my head around the fact that none of this stuff actually exists, that it’s all a meticulously rendered digital environment. But, more important, Cameron hasn’t lost the ability to convey his dorky-sweet enthusiasm to the audience. It’s hard not to lose oneself amid the gentle, flowing cadences of this exquisitely created undersea universe, where the water enveloping the characters gradually becomes a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all living beings.” — Bilge Ebiri , Vulture

“But although I was not surprised that  The Way of Water ’s visuals blew me away, I was shockingly invested in the emotional complications of the Sully family (many threads are left dangling for the already confirmed  Avatar 3 ). Maintaining a sense of stakes will be necessary for the series going forward, especially if it plans on rolling out new entries at a quicker pace. But for  The Way of Water , the decadence is more than enough—for cinemas that have been starved of authentic spectacle, finally, here’s a gorgeous three-course meal of it.” — David Sims , The Atlantic

“It’s the most rapturous, awe-inducing,  only in theaters  return to the cinema of attractions since Godard experimented with double exposure 3D in Goodbye to Language , whether swimming with schools of alien fish or introducing us to the four-eyed, 300-foot-long whale-like  tulkun  (who prove central to the plot and communicate in subtitled Papyrus), these scenes have more in common with VR or lucid dreaming than whatever rinky-dink CGI we’re forced to swallow with every new superhero movie, and Cameron lets us soak up every frame. If we can fall in love with this world and be compelled by the fight to save it, why can’t we do the same with our own?” — David Ehrlich , IndieWire

“Maybe Cameron reacquainted himself with the work of Sam Raimi. Maybe he’s drinking from the same cup as  S.S. Rajamouli , who made the magnificent, absolutely ludicrous  Indian import  RRR . In  The Way of Water , Cameron leans all the way into manic mayhem, smash-cutting from one outrageous image to the next. The final act of this movie shows off a freeing attitude he’s never fully embraced before in his action — even action that’s strikingly similar, like the massive sinking ship sequence in  Titanic . James Cameron has some expertise in this arena, but this time out, it feels like he’s having a lot more fun.” — Jordan Hoffman , Polygon

“This wildly entertaining film isn’t a retread of Avatar , but a film in which fans can pick out thematic and even visual elements of Titanic , Aliens , The Abyss , and The Terminator films. It’s as if Cameron has moved to Pandora forever and brought everything he cares about. (He’s also clearly never leaving.) Cameron invites viewers into this fully realized world with so many striking images and phenomenally rendered action scenes that everything else fades away.” — Brian Tallerico , RogerEbert.com

“Cue another immersive, action-packed adventure, but this time with a more nuanced message. Whereas Avatar bashed its audience on the head with repeated references to spirituality and the balance of life,  Way Of The Water  is primarily about family (though there is one gut-wrenching scene that makes for a most effective anti-hunting advert). It finds a believable way to bring back characters from the first movie, and sets up the overarching plot for future instalments. This is sharp, considered storytelling.” — Ali Shutler , NME

“The submarine world of this film is, in its way, its chief character and its whole point. The move from land- to sea-based existence is the way a new film was created. But the sea world is imagined with a lot of cliche. Frankly, there isn’t a single interesting visual image and the whole thing has the non-briny smell of a MacBook Pro. Finding Nemo was more vivid.” — Peter Bradshaw , The Guardian

“How much you care about the fate of a bunch of outsize blue people will depend on your appetite for a sci-fi survival story that draws from classic Westerns while upping the stakes with the threat of genocide. Either way, this is a big movie, monumental even, that justifies its three hours-plus of screen time and its mammoth financial investment.” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“It’s best to not think too hard about certain things — for example, at least one immaculate conception — and just weather others, as in one long bit akin to an extremely cruel animal documentary. And while the visual effects are on the whole pretty fantastic, the film every so often resembles a video game or a theme-park ride that seems sort of wonky compared to the more sumptuous parts.” — Brian Truitt , USA Today

“And while his VFX team has done a remarkable job blooming emotion on their green and blue visages, the lackluster writing gives these performances suffocatingly little to play with. The likes of Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, and  Interview with a Vampire   scene-stealer Bailey Bass are squandered in paper-thin roles, of women who are either beatific in awe of nature or baring their teeth in tears. These are not people but poster girls either of bliss or pain. And so their emotional journeys feel hollow, even as we can see their worlds falling apart.” — Kristy Puchko , Mashable

“Edie Falco thanklessly barks exposition in fatigues, a scientist randomly reveals that he possesses the key to eternal life, and the finale resorts to cheap bathos before setting up forthcoming sequels. Whenever it’s not losing itself in kinetic mayhem,  The Way of Water  is interminable and full of itself—and ultimately, that turns out to be most of the time. In the first of his many functional voiceovers, Jake intones, ‘The most dangerous thing about Pandora is that you may come to love her too much.’ That’s clearly true for Cameron, but he should speak for himself.” — Nick Schager , The Daily Beast

“ Avatar: The Way of Water  explores enough new story beats, and raises the stakes for its characters through tension to justify the continuation of the first film’s narrative. Engaging, enjoyable, and one of the most beautiful films of the year,  The Way of the Water  is a transformative movie experience that energizes and captivates the senses through its visual storytelling, making the return to Pandora well worth the wait.” — Mae Abdulbaki , ScreenRant

“But it’s worth saying this: When Cameron’s 3D cauldron of spells is at a high boil, the end result is nothing less than an upgrade on reality. At its best, you find yourself resenting the edges of the screen, for keeping you from feeling fully immersed in this world.” — Liz Shannon Miller , Consequence

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Avatar: The Way of Water

James Cameron wants you to believe. He wants you to believe that aliens are killing machines, humanity can defeat time-traveling cyborgs, and a film can transport you to a significant historical disaster. In many ways, the planet of Pandora in " Avatar " has become his most ambitious manner of sharing this belief in the power of cinema. Can you leave everything in your life behind and experience a film in a way that's become increasingly difficult in an era of so much distraction? As technology has advanced, Cameron has pushed the limits of his power of belief even further, playing with 3D, High Frame Rate, and other toys that weren't available when he started his career. But one of the many things that is so fascinating about "Avatar: The Way of Water" is how that belief manifests itself in themes he's explored so often before. This wildly entertaining film isn't a retread of "Avatar," but a film in which fans can pick out thematic and even visual elements of " Titanic ," " Aliens ," "The Abyss," and "The Terminator" films. It's as if Cameron has moved to Pandora forever and brought everything he cares about. (He's also clearly never leaving.) Cameron invites viewers into this fully realized world with so many striking images and phenomenally rendered action scenes that everything else fades away.

Maybe not right away. "Avatar: The Way of Water" struggles to find its footing at first, throwing viewers back into the world of Pandora in a narratively clunky way. One can tell that Cameron really cares most about the world-building mid-section of this film, which is one of his greatest accomplishments, so he rushes through some of the set-ups to get to the good stuff. Before then, we catch up with Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ), a human who is now a full-time Na'vi and partners with Neytiri ( Zoe Saldana ), with whom he has started a family. They have two sons—Neteyam ( Jamie Flatters ) and Lo'ak ( Britain Dalton )—and a daughter named Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and they are guardians of Kiri ( Sigourney Weaver ), the offspring of Weaver's character from the first film.

Family bliss is fractured when the 'sky people' return, including an avatar Na'vi version of one Colonel Miles Quaritch ( Stephen Lang ), who has come to finish what he started, including vengeance on Jake for the death of his human form. He comes back with a group of former-human-now-Na'vi soldiers who are the film's main antagonists, but not the only ones. "Avatar: The Way of Water" once again casts the military, planet-destroying humans of this universe as its truest villains, but the villains' motives are sometimes a bit hazy. Around halfway through, I realized it's not very clear why Quaritch is so intent on hunting Jake and his family, other than the plot needs it, and Lang is good at playing mad.

The bulk of "Avatar: The Way of Water" hinges on the same question Sarah Connor asks in the "Terminator" movies—fight or flight for family? Do you run and hide from the powerful enemy to try and stay safe or turn and fight the oppressive evil? At first, Jake takes the former option, leading them to another part of Pandora, where the film opens up via one of Cameron's longtime obsessions: H2O. The aerial acrobatics of the first film are supplanted by underwater ones in a region run by Tonowari ( Cliff Curtis ), the leader of a clan called the Metkayina. Himself a family man—his wife is played by Kate Winslet —Tonowari is worried about the danger the new Na'vi visitors could bring but can't turn them away. Again, Cameron plays with moral questions about responsibility in the face of a powerful evil, something that recurs in a group of commercial poachers from Earth. They dare to hunt sacred water animals in stunning sequences during which you have to remind yourself that none of what you're watching is real.

The film's midsection shifts its focus away from Sully/Quaritch to the region's children as Jake's boys learn the ways of the water clan. Finally, the world of "Avatar" feels like it's expanding in ways the first film didn't. Whereas that film was more focused on a single story, Cameron ties together multiple ones here in a far more ambitious and ultimately rewarding fashion. While some of the ideas and plot developments—like the connection of Kiri to Pandora or the arc of a new character named Spider ( Jack Champion )—are mostly table-setting for future films, the entire project is made richer by creating a larger canvas for its storytelling. While one could argue that there needs to be a stronger protagonist/antagonist line through a film that discards both Jake & Quaritch for long periods, I would counter that those terms are intentionally vague here. The protagonist is the entire family and even the planet on which they live, and the antagonist is everything trying to destroy the natural world and the beings that are so connected to it.

Viewers should be warned that Cameron's ear for dialogue hasn't improved—there are a few lines that will earn unintentional laughter—but there's almost something charming about his approach to character, one that weds old-fashioned storytelling to breakthrough technology. Massive blockbusters often clutter their worlds with unnecessary mythologies or backstories, whereas Cameron does just enough to ensure this impossible world stays relatable. His deeper themes of environmentalism and colonization could be understandably too shallow for some viewers—and the way he co-opts elements of Indigenous culture could be considered problematic—and I wouldn't argue against that. But if a family uses this as a starting point for conversations about those themes then it's more of a net positive than most blockbusters that provide no food for thought. 

There has been so much conversation about the cultural impact of "Avatar" recently, as superheroes dominated the last decade of pop culture in a way that allowed people to forget the Na'vi. Watching "Avatar: The Way of Water," I was reminded of how impersonal the Hollywood machine has become over the last few decades and how often the blockbusters that truly make an impact on the form have displayed the personal touch of their creator. Think of how the biggest and best films of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg couldn't have been made by anyone else. "Avatar: The Way of Water" is a James Cameron blockbuster, through and through. And I still believe in him.

Available only in theaters on December 16th. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Sam Worthington as Jake Sully
• Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri
• Sigourney Weaver as Kiri
• Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch
• Kate Winslet as Ronal
• Cliff Curtis as Tonowari
• Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman
• CCH Pounder as Mo'at
• Edie Falco as General Frances Ardmore
• Brendan Cowell as Mick Scoresby
• Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ian Garvin
• Jamie Flatters as Neteyam
• Britain Dalton as Lo'ak
• Trinity Bliss as Tuktirey
• Jack Champion as Javier 'Spider' Socorro
• Bailey Bass as Tsireya
• Filip Geljo as Aonung
• Duane Evans Jr. as Rotxo
• Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge
• Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel

Writer (story by)

• Amanda Silver
• James Cameron
• Josh Friedman
• Shane Salerno
• David Brenner
• John Refoua
• Stephen E. Rivkin

Cinematographer

• Russell Carpenter
• Simon Franglen

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‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Review: Big Blue Marvel

James Cameron returns to Pandora, and to the ecological themes and visual bedazzlements of his 2009 blockbuster.

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By A.O. Scott

Way back in 2009, “Avatar” arrived on screens as a plausible and exciting vision of the movie future. Thirteen years later, “Avatar: The Way of Water” — the first of several long-awaited sequels directed by James Cameron — brings with it a ripple of nostalgia.

The throwback sensation may hit you even before the picture starts, as you unfold your 3-D glasses. When was the last time you put on a pair of those? Even the anticipation of seeing something genuinely new at the multiplex feels like an artifact of an earlier time, before streaming and the Marvel Universe took over.

The first “Avatar” fused Cameron’s faith in technological progress with his commitments to the primal pleasures of old-fashioned storytelling and the visceral delights of big-screen action. The 3-D effects and intricately rendered digital landscapes — the trees and flowers of the moon Pandora and the way creatures and machines swooped and barreled through them — felt like the beginning of something, the opening of a fresh horizon of imaginative possibility.

At the same time, the visual novelty was built on a sturdy foundation of familiar themes and genre tropes. “Avatar” was set on a fantastical world populated by soulful blue bipeds, but it wasn’t exactly (or only) science fiction. It was a revisionist western, an ecological fable, a post-Vietnam political allegory — a tale of romance, valor and revenge with traces of Homer, James Fenimore Cooper and “Star Trek” in its DNA.

All of that is also true of “The Way of Water,” which picks up the story and carries it from Pandora’s forests to its reefs and wetlands — an environment that inspires some new and dazzling effects. Where “Avatar” found inspiration in lizard-birds, airborne spores and jungle flowers, the sequel revels in aquatic wonders, above all a kind of armored whale called the tulkun.

Before we meet those beings — in a sequence that has the quiet awe of a nature documentary — we are brought up-to-date with the characters from the first movie, whom we may have forgotten about. Jake Sully, the conflicted U.S. Marine played by Sam Worthington who was the hero of “Avatar,” has remade his life among the Na’vi. Like them, he is now tall, slender and blue, with a mane of dark hair and a braid that connects him to members of other species. He’s fluent in Na’vi (though most of the dialogue is rendered in English).

Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are raising a brood of biological and adopted children, whose squabbles and adventures bring a youthful energy to the sometimes heavy, myth-laden narrative. There are four Na’vi kids, a pair each of brothers and sisters. Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), the older son, walks dutifully in Jake’s brave shadow, while his younger brother, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), is a rebel and a hothead, looking for trouble and often finding it.

Their sisters are the adorable Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and the teenage Kiri, whose birth mother was the noble human scientist Grace Augustine. One of the film’s genuinely uncanny effects is that Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Augustine in the first film, plays Kiri in this one, her unmistakable face digitally de-aged and tinted blue. Like her mother, the girl has a mystical, Lorax-like connection to the trees and flowers of Pandora.

Jake and Neytiri’s sitcom-worthy household is completed by Spider (Jack Champion), a scampish human boy left behind by Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Jake’s former Marine commander and one of the villains of the original “Avatar.” Quaritch returns to Pandora with a new mandate to colonize it, and a squad of Na’vi-ized fighters to carry out the mission. He has a long-simmering vendetta against Jake, and much of “The Way of Water” is concerned less with large-scale imperial ambitions than with personal dramas of loyalty and betrayal.

With a running time of more than three hours — about 10 minutes shorter than “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” by recent acclamation the greatest movie of all time — “The Way of Water” is overloaded with character and incident. The final stretch, which feels somehow longer than the rest of it, runs aground in action movie bombast, and suggests that even a pop auteur as inventive and resourceful as Cameron may have run out of ideas when it comes to climactic fight sequences. There are a lot of those, in the air and underwater, fistic and fiery, sad and rousing, nearly every one of which will remind you of stuff you’ve seen a dozen times before.

That’s too bad, because much of the middle of “The Way of Water” restores the latent promise of newness — no small accomplishment in an era of wearying franchise overkill. Afraid that Quaritch and his men will bring slaughter to the forest, Jake and Neytiri seek the protection of Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), chieftains of a reef-dwelling Na’vi clan.

The differences among the Na’vi — physical as well as cultural — add an interesting new dimension to the anthropology of Pandora, and to the film’s aesthetic palette. The viewer discovers this variety in the company of the younger characters, especially Kiri and Lo’ak. Their adaptation to new surroundings — being teased for their skinny tails and clumsy arms, getting in fights and making new friends — gives the movie the buoyant, high-spirited sincerity of young-adult fiction.

Cameron’s embrace of the idealism of adolescence, of the capacity for moral outrage as well as wonder, is the emotional heart of the movie. You feel it in a horrifying scene of tulkun slaughter that aspires to the awful, stirring sublimity of the last chapters of “Moby-Dick,” and also in the restlessness of Lo’ak, Spider and Kiri as they try to figure out their roles. The next sequels, I suspect, will give them more time for that, but may also encumber them with more baggage.

I’m curious, and inclined — as I was in 2009 — to give this grand, muddled project the benefit of the doubt. Cameron’s ambitions are as sincere as they are self-contradictory. He wants to conquer the world in the name of the underdog, to celebrate nature by means of the most extravagant artifice, and to make everything new feel old again.

Avatar: The Way of Water Rated PG-13. Almost blue. Running time: 3 hours 12 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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Avatar: The Way of Water review – You probably still won’t care, but at least it’s very pretty

Thirteen years after its predecessor became (for a time) the highest-grossing movie ever, this sequel feels less like an act of love than an act of material achievement, independent premium, subscribe to independent premium to bookmark this article.

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Who cares about Avatar ? No one quite seems to know. James Cameron ’s 2009 behemoth, the highest-grossing film in the world until Avengers: Endgame a decade later, has been at the centre of a small cultural fracas in the lead-up to its Covid-delayed sequel. One half of the internet has fervently defended the film against claims by the other that it’s, as actor and podcast host Griffin Newman once coined, only “memorable for being unmemorable”. Where is its mark on the world? Where are the legions of fans strutting around in blue body paint and wiggly cat ears? Where are the imitators? Shouldn’t there have been a million more derivative films about aliens defending themselves from colonisation?

I can answer these questions no better than anyone else. But, sitting down 13 years later to watch Avatar: The Way of Water , after years of Cameron promising his follow-up would make us “s*** [ourselves] with [our] mouth wide open”, I did start to wonder whether we’ve been looking at things from entirely the wrong angle. These films, which are largely identical in tone, don’t feel like acts of love, but of material achievement. They exist more to be respected than to be adored – signposts on the road of cinema history, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. Avatar redefined the notion of CGI spectacle. Hollywood has spent the years since pumping out extended cinematic universes just to try and match its sense of grandiose importance.

Avatar: The Way of Water is, once again, a gauntlet thrown down at the feet of the industry. I can’t say that I cared all that much about its story, its themes, or its characters, but its unimpeachable effects work made it feel like I’d locked eyes with the future. It’s an achievement of such technological clarity that I’d instantly buy any flatscreen TV that was showing it in Currys. The plot, if anything, is an inconvenient distraction from the real pleasure of looking and guffawing. The first film saw human marine Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ) switch sides, betraying his fellow colonisers on the moon of Pandora in order to join up with the alien Na’vi. In Avatar ’s final scene, he transferred his consciousness into a Na’vi body for good. A decade later, we’re reunited with him and his mate-for-life Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), now with their own family unit in tow. They have three children and have adopted the teenage Kiri ( Sigourney Weaver ), who was born, Jesus-like, from the “avatar” of Dr Grace Augustine (also Weaver) from the first film. Then there’s “Spider” (Jack Champion), a white human boy in dreadlocks who hangs around like a stray and offers us a solid preview of what Disney’s inevitable live-action Tarzan will look like.

Their paradisal bliss is short-lived as – mamma mia, here we go again – the very bad humans return in order to colonise Pandora once more. And they do so for over three hours. The screenplay offers us three separate reasons for this: Earth is on its deathbed and humanity needs a new home; there’s a new, extremely rare and expensive substance on Pandora on top of the energy-conducting mineral “unobtanium”; and they’re somehow still mad at Jake for betraying them. This time, the formerly dead Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) has had his consciousness cloned into a Na’vi avatar. Jake and his family are forced to flee, seeking sanctuary among the water-dwelling Metkayina – Na’vi in a different shade of blue – and their leaders Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal ( Kate Winslet ).

Hence, “the way of water”, which is really Cameron’s excuse to boggle the audience’s minds with underwater sequences that are so indistinguishable from reality that the events of The Matrix seem all the more like a terrifying plausibility. If Avatar created the documented phenomenon of “Pandora Depression” – a moroseness stemming from the crushing realisation that Cameron’s world is but an illusion – who knows what The Way of Water could trigger in viewers. The film’s controversial use of a higher frame rate, speeding up the standard 24-frames-per-second to 48-frames-per-second, is certainly disconcerting in parts, but it also does away with the typically blurry sludginess of CGI-heavy blockbusters of late. There’s always been a barrier preventing total immersion into CGI worlds, but Pandora seems so tangible that it’s the humans here who look fake.

The beauty of The Way of Water , though, stops there. It’s hard to find much artfulness in its compositions, which seem mostly to borrow from the baseline language of video games, complete with excessive POV shots. And there’s little heart to its story, which compounds the narrative problems of the first film by once more laying the glory of anti-colonial resistance at the foot of a white man who’s “gone native”. The Na’vi are no more than a vague, exoticised blend of real indigenous cultures, with the Metkayina given a few, shallow nods towards Polynesian traditions. The latter is especially odd when handed to Kate Winslet.

Saldaña’s Neytiri, tellingly, is completely sidelined. She mostly cries, and then is told to stop crying and get it together by her stout, action-hero love. The dialogue is either filled with faux-spiritualism or Cameron-typical quips such as “it’s called a punch, bitch”. The two extremes never blend in a way that feels convincing. But these are exactly the same criticisms lobbed at the first Avatar and, often, the rest of the director’s filmography. Cameron, at this point, seems interested less in being an artist than a cinematic frontiersman. That’s the point of The Way of Water – it’s not about what the film has to offer us now, but what it tells us about the future.

Dir: James Cameron. Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Giovanni Ribisi, Edie Falco. Cert 12A, 192 minutes

‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is in cinemas from 16 December

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The First Reviews of ‘Avatar: The Way Of The Water’ Are In

The long-awaited blockbuster had its London premiere last night

The pressure is on for James Cameron. The Avatar director was behind one of the most expensive films of all time ($237 million, wallet-watchers) that actually turned out to be one of the highest grossing films of all time (an incredible $2.92 billion). It won three Oscars. Now, 13 years later he’s hoping to do it all again with the sequel, Avatar: The Way Of The Water .

Actually, he’s been signed up to do a whole franchise. Avatar 3 has finished filming already, and is due out in 2024, while there will be a further two outings in 2026 and 2028. By 2030, the only entertainment available to humans will be Avatar -related, and all other forms of art and culture will be rendered obsolete – but until then, let's focus on The Way Of The Water , which had its premiere in London on Tuesday night. Clocking in at a bum-numbing three hours, the audience were rewarded with the embargo for social media review being lifted straight afterwards, so the first critic’s reactions are in.

It’s fair to say it got thumbs up from David Sims of The Atlantic : “AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER absolutely owns bones. I was slapping my seat, hooting, screaming for the Na’vi to take out every last one of those dang sky people …it’s an Avatar movie: slow start, big build, incredibly involving second act with a ton of world building and cool creatures that blisses you way out, then an hour of screamingly good crystal clear emotionally trenchant action to send you home full and happy.”

Yolanda Machado of Entertainment Weekly bigged up the visual aspects, but it kind of reminded her of a couple other films (plus a good tip for everyone at the end): “James Cameron is a technology master… and his direction is at its most precise here. The film as a whole, while a technological marvel with a breathtaking world, is just …. Dances with Wolves and Free Willy for Gen Z! Pee beforehand.”

Empire magazine’s Amon Warmann says it’s a mixed bag, but it’s better than the first film: “Liked it, didn't love it. The good news is that 3D is good again (yay!), and the action is pretty incredible (especially in the final act). But many of the storylines feel like they have to stop and start, and the high frame rate was hit & miss for me. This movie sure is pretty to look at though. And on the whole, I liked The Way Of The Water more than Avatar 2009, if for nothing else because it has less in your face white saviourism than the original.”

Ian Sandwell of Digital Spy calls it a “masterpiece” but it comes with a caveat: “Unsurprisingly, The Way of Water is a visual masterpiece with rich use of 3D and breathtaking vistas. It does suffer from a thin story and too many characters to juggle, yet James Cameron pulls it together for an extraordinary final act full of emotion and thrilling action."

Alexander Kardelo of MovieZine adds that while not blown away by it, it packs a hefty emotional punch: “While it doesn’t really exceed expectations, Cameron's stunning sequel adds a touching family drama. The stakes are higher. New likeable characters take the lead. Prepare to cry for CGI whales and fall in love with the Sully kids. 3 hours never felt so short.”

Perri Nemiroff from Collider called it “pretty incredible” but the true props had to be given to the world-building, and actor Britain Dalton: “I had faith James Cameron would raise the bar w/ the effects but these visuals are mind-blowing. One stunning frame after the next. But the thing I dug most is how the technical feats always feel in service of character & world-building. As for the story, it's A LOT of movie & I'm eager for a 2nd viewing to revisit some details, but on 1st watch, it's a mighty effective exploration of community & family dynamics. Returning cast is great, but the newcomers are major standouts, particularly Britain Dalton as Lo'ak.”

David Ehrlich of IndieWire says bring on the three-quel: “Lol imagine being dumb enough to bet against James Cameron. or teen alien Sigourney Weaver. or giant whales subtitled in papyrus. light years better than the first & easily one of the best theatrical experiences in ages. streaming found dead in a ditch. I was, uh, not exactly champing at the bit for an Avatar 2 (even if ‘James Cameron + wet’ tends to work out pretty well). now I can’t *wait* to see Avatar 3 . That's basically all I wanted out of this and it delivered in a big way.”

So, all hype or a new genre-defining masterpiece? Make your own mind up when it hits cinemas in the UK on 16 December.

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