I honestly didn’t think this movie was ever going to come out. I thought it was going to be one of those films that is just talked about for years but nothing ends up happening kind of like a live action Akira movie or a Man Of Steel sequel so when posters and trailers finally started dropping, it felt pretty surreal. It also helped that the trailers were fantastic and revealed very little about the plot while also showcasing just how far the CGI effects have come and every single trailer just kept making the film look better and better.
I’m not one of those people who worships the first movie. I think it’s a fun, decent science fiction film and that’s it but knowing James Cameron’s filmography, he’s made two franchise defining sequels and I figured he’d do the same with Avatar. I went into this film expecting a story with higher stakes, more likable characters, bigger set pieces and stronger emotional beats and I got some of that, I guess.
I do like this film but I don’t love it. There are some things this movie does that I would argue are great but the film is held down by some massive flaws. This is a movie with some fantastic acting, stunning visuals, amazing action set pieces and some actual likable characters but is held back by story flaws, some stupid moments and a run time that could’ve been trimmed down a bit.
Everyone and their mother is going to be talking about how the visuals are amazing and they’re not wrong. This film has the greatest CGI in movie history, there is no debate on that. From the underwater effects, the blue skin on the Na’vi characters, the metal weapons and vehicles the humans use and the wildlife of Pandora, it all looks stunning beyond belief. This is also boosted by the amazing 3D experience. I never saw the first movie in a theater period so seeing this one in 3D probably boosted my experience.
Then there’s the story and characters and it’s kind of a mixed bag. I’ll talk about what I like. I think the two most interesting characters are Quaritch, the Stephen Lang character from the first film who’s back as a Na’vi clone and Lo’ak, one of the sons of Jake Sully and Neytiri. Quaritch was pretty boring in the first film. His whole role was just “villainous military commander” and that’s it. Here, they give him more to do and he’s got more depth to him. He feels more humanized and honestly, I found myself rooting for him about half the time. Since he’s technically a different character if you think about it, he’s given more to do and his interactions with the other characters are vastly more interesting. His relationship with this one character named Spider was one of the strongest aspects of the whole movie.
Lo’ak is cool because he’s probably the only character in the entire film with an actual character arc and he becomes a different person by the end of the film. His relationship with the whale thing was great and if the movie focused almost entirely on the whale subplot and Spider and Quaritch tracking down Jake, this would’ve probably been a 10/10 movie because those two aspects really worked.
There are also two other characters named Spider and Kiri who are clearly going to be a big part of future movies and seem to have some romantic interest in each other. Those four were hands down the most interesting characters. Everyone else? Not so much.
Jake and Neytiri are still the same generic characters they were in the first film. The older brother who dies is just “perfect older brother” and that’s it. The younger daughter adds absolutely nothing to the film. The water clan leaders were just kind of there and didn’t add much. Edie Falco and Jemaine Clement are in this movie but their characters are forgettable although I heard they get more to due in future movies.
The story is pretty predictable. The idea of Jake and Neytiri starting a family and going into hiding in a water clan while the humans are hunting them is cool but there’s some odd moments that took me out of the movie for a bit. The idea of the water clan being close to these whales that they can talk to with sign language and can understand the noises they make was stupid beyond belief so when they humans kill one of them, I felt nothing. And I also can’t go without mentioning how dumb it was that the water clan just disappeared halfway through the final battle. I get that they were removed to due a negative reaction in a test screening but come on.
Overall, I left the theater pretty satisfied. I heard the third movie is even better and if that’s the case, it might be an amazing movie. This is a franchise that has so much potential and it’s not using a lot of it. Maybe when it’s all said and done, I’ll look back it and say “what a masterpiece in cinematic history this was.”
