Avatar: The Way of the Water Review

Thirteen years have passed since 2009's Avatar was first released in theaters and in those 13 years... I had basically no interest in actually watching this movie... but I wanted to see this one because it does look quite stunning visually and in those 13 years I've learned to appreciate that movies are sometimes just good to look at. I did watch the original Avatar and I enjoyed it... but it was such a long movie that I felt like I couldn't remember the first half of the movie by the time the second half came around. Because I watched the first Avatar at home and the second one in theaters, I think I did technically enjoy the second one better... but I have to say... there were so so so many problems with it that I'm going to get into now.

Synopsis

Miles Quaritch- the antagonist of the first movie- had his memories put into an Avatar and now he's on his way to find Jake Sully to get his revenge. Jake,now married to Neytiri and with 5 children to protect seeks refuge in the water nation called Metkayina. His family needs to learn the way of the water in order to survive living with the Metkayina.

Review

So my big problem with these movies are the lack of character development... Our main characters in Avatar 1 are barely in this movie...and the characters that the movie spends some time developing aren't really all that important. For 6 hours between both movies... I was expecting some sort of character development... but really there isn't that much.

Also with that- Jake Sully is a total coward in this movie. Instead of facing Miles head on- he just flees and it endangers this whole other tribe and a species of animal that the tribe is really close with. Jake is supposed to be a hero, but he's such a coward in this movie and there really isn't any repercussions to what he's done... and I don't think he even really realizes that he's done wrong! So many terrible things happen because of him! WIthout getting to spoiler-y this does affect Jake's family... but really it's just like "yeah this happened because it happened," not because it was partially Jake's responsibility.

My favorite characters in the movie were Jake's youngest son, Lo'ak, Kiri- who is their oldest daughter and is adopted... which might be a bit of a spoiler but not really, and Spider- who is Miles Quaritch's son and has been with the crew of scientists on Pandora and is raised with many customs of the Navi, despite being a human.

Spider kind of seems like he should be the main character... but there are so many subplots in this movie that get used that he really doesn't seem like much of a character at all. We also have Kiri who has this whole health issue that's a big part of the movie... and that doesn't really get talked about or mentioned again... it just kind of goes away... and we have Lo'ak- who I feel like somehow got the most screen time.

All of these characters had a pretty good arc- and I thought Spider really should have been developed more. He is this kind of mysterious character and he's trying to bond with his "dad"- but he also doesn't want to betray the Navi because they're his friends. Although really- there's not much reason for him to have loyalty to Jake and his wife because... they really never treat him that well.

There's also a moment where Jeanine Clement's character basically tells us what the third movie is going to be about and it seems very very obvious... but the third movie is supposed to be about the "Fire Tribe" which... sounds an awful lot like the animated series Avatar... Also in the third movie Miles is the villain AGAIN... so these 3 movies aren't really introducing any new characters or doing anything interesting... its just kind of staying the same...

We also never really get much background between the Navi and the water tribe... so that's kind of a problem. I think they kind of suggest why the water tribe doesn't really like them... but they just seem kind of needlessly cruel when they need to be and needlessly kind when they need to be... so this was just kind of a weird subplot in this film that was kind of the main plot?

My boyfriend's main issue with this movie- which is why he doesn't think he'll show this movie to his friends... there are some moments in the movie where the frame rate just isn't right and it looks very very weird on screen. We saw the movie in IMAX 3d- so I'm not sure if that had anything to do with why it was so odd... but there were just some very wonky moments with the animation and with the effects in the movie.

So overall... we didn't need this sequel. While I enjoyed watching both movies... I can't really say I would purchase either of these on DVD and I think I might watch this again before the third movie... but its a long movie and.. it's hard for me to really fully recommend. If you wanna see it- see it. If you don't want to see it- you're not missing out on much. I gave it 3 out of five stars on my letterboxed review... I feel like that's a bit generous maybe because there were just so many issues I had with the movie... but I did still enjoy seeing it so that's why it's 3 stars and not 2 or 2 and a half.

That's my first movie review of 2022. Let me know what you think of this and I will see you soon and if you like reviews I'm hopefully going to see M3gan this week and I'll be sure to include that!

Bye!

_ Shannon