Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian has finally published his long, scathing review of 'Avatar 2' and, we have to say, it's anything but praise. In fact, he likens the movie to an underwater screensaver. We share with you a few of our favorite snippets and other critics' responses on James Cameron's $1bn follow-up series of films from his 2009 smash hit, 'Avatar.'Avatar: The Way of Water is an upcoming American epic science fiction film that is the sequel to the 2009 film Avatar, both directed by James Cameron. The film is distributed by 20th Century Studios.
But James Cameron’s sequel is a truly dazzling cinematic experience that will have you floating on a blockbuster high.
No matter if you’ve spent a second of your life in the past 13 years thinking about what’s happening on Pandora or how Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are getting on, assuming you remember their characters’ names. “The Way of Water” will make awe-struck believers out of even “Avatar” agnostics like me, at least for three hours and 12 minutes. The film isn’t just visually compelling, either, it’s spiritually rich as well — a simple but penetrating story about family and the natural world that is galaxies better than the first.
About that run time: Three hours and 12 minutes sounds excessive, but there is something decidedly decadent about really committing that much time to a movie in a theater. When the filmmaker is purposeful with that time, as Cameron is and many others have been before him, it’s a uniquely rewarding experience. In other words, it’s not a big ask. And you’ll forget all about checking the time from the first shot of Pandora and Jake’s earnest exposition about what’s been going on in the past decade.
He and Neytiri have three kids now, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and an adopted teenage daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and they’re happy living in the forest. “Happiness is simple,” he says. “Who ever thought that a jughead like me could crack the code?” So, of course, it can’t last. The humans are on the hunt for Jake, with a familiar antagonist leading the charge. And soon his family is on the run, taking up home in another part of Pandora, on the water with a new tribe led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) who reluctantly grant them refuge and try to teach them how to live on the water.
It’s worth noting that Cameron has not stuffed the film with mind-numbing, wall-to-wall action and needlessly complicated plot. There are long stretches of movie where we’re simply exploring the environment with the characters, delighting in the intricacies of a reef or basking in the beauty of giant sea creatures. Sometimes we’re just sitting in the water with Kiri who is also sitting in the water. It is not advancing the action in any obvious way. It is not even really developing characters. It just is, and it’s serene. You imagine that anyone without his clout would have a hard time justifying something similar.
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