As for someone who loved the first film; after waiting, and waiting; witnessing pushback after pushback on its release date I at one point was worried about if this film would ever see the light of day. For which the pandemic didn't help with that issue either. The film is finally released and I finally got myself to the theater to watch it. Was the wait well worth it? Ehh...kind of. I'm going to get the obvious out of the way. The film looks outstanding, and beautifully articulated. I think everyone who's seen and reviewed this movie has said that. For me only one character stood out which was Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles, he was more or less the main character of the film and got the most screen time of all of the others. He did a good job at making his character feel more complex than the previous film and going a little bit beyond the typical villain characteristics. Along with that, some of the action scenes; especially one with a shark; are great. That too isn't a surprise knowing James Cameron's history with producing great action scenes. Simon Franglen does a good enough job replacing the late James Horner as composer, even though they reuse some of Horner's themes. Sigourney Weaver is good as always with her character distinguishing herself from her previous character from the first film. So all of the positives with this all are pretty unsurprising. But I will always give credit where credit is due. On the other hand, the story suffers so much at the hands of the attention to the visuals it's pretty much nonexistent. In fact, it has a very similar story rhythm of the first film. Absolutely no originality, no reason to get invested, just a frustrating experience sitting there waiting for that feeling the first film gave me. And a lot of that had to do with the story itself. To me, that is the biggest problem, so much it almost saturated the whole experience for me. By far the worst movie James Cameron has made in his impressive filmography, even though this is middle of the road and not an actual bad movie. In the end, I'd say the wait wasn't worth it. The disappointment is heightened because of how long I've waited and anticipated for this movie. Because of this my enthusiasm for the next film has been negatively affected. Overall, I love the visuals, some actions scenes, and Stephen Lang. I don't like the story, and the other characters (Worthington and Saldana are wasted). This sucks because I loved the first film so much and for it to see it fall so far is really disappointing. 7/10 because of the visuals.
Review of Avatar: The Way of Water
