Avatar 2: The Way of Water (2022)

Summary: Lets try to summarise the main points. Years have passed since we last visited Pandora. Jake Sully is now permanently a member of the Na’vi with a wife Neytiri and offspring; sons Neteyam and Lo’ak daughter Tuk, as well as adopted daughter Kiri and Spider the human son of Col Quaritch. Now the sky people have returned and Jake leads Na’vi rebels who are harassing them. Although killed years before, Quaritch is back as an avatar with other “recombatants” hunting for Jake. The young people are captured by Quaritch but are rescued and Jake and his family go on the run taking refuge with the water world people, the Metkayina. Misfortunes result in Quaritch getting a bead on Jake and a confrontation between the sky people and the Na’vi is inevitable.

Content: No sex, nudity (although everybody wears very little) drinking or drug taking. We see the recombatants being set up somewhere in the sky people’s world. The are inserted on Pandora and capture the Na’vi children. In a small fire fight Jake gets them back. The family escape to the water world and undergo a lot of training in water stuff. One of the sons has a fight with the Metkayina youth and ends up being chased by a shark like thing, but is rescued by a whale like thing. There is confrontation between the Na’vi and the Metkayina because they are now under threat from the sky people’s avatars. Finally Quaritch commandeers a whaling surface effect ship and starts killing the whale like things to draw Jake out.

A View: Despite this film’s vast production cost it seems to have covered it on its first weekend. I has seen Avatar in 2D, but this time had the opportunity of seeing it in 3D and was impressed. I actually felt a moment of nausea when some characters were weightless. I usually enjoy SF machines and this outing did not disappoint. The surface effect ship (existing technology) was wonderful and I liked the detail of the sound effects of the firearms which differed from each other. Also the water world steeds, sort of enormous flying fish, were great. But it seemed to me that the director was too caught up in his own technology, particularly underwater motion capture, since this part of the film went on interminably. Yes, unfortunately the most technically advanced part of the film was the most boring. So, points off for being far too long with a pretty weak story. But if you saw the first one you are going to have to see this.

So unfortunately not so good as some of James Cameron’s classics. A sample of those reviewed on this site include The Terminator, True Lies and Aliens.