In my review of Avatar: The Way of Water, I called the film “a three-hour Disney ride.” After Avatar: Fire and Ash, I may have been too generous. Rides have clean geography, dependable turns, and a basic sense of where the vehicle is going. Avatar: Fire and Ash is something stranger: a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars blockbuster that often seems baffled by the ordinary mechanics of narrative, character, and filmmaking.
Avatar
Avatar 2: The Way-off Water
Avatar 2: The Way of Water is a three-hour Disney ride more than an actual film, and it feels as though the creators believe that’s plenty. Characters are drawn broadly and their motivations even more so. Plot elements are convenient, shoe-horned, and repetitious retreads of the first film, at least when they aren’t completely nonsensical. Themes are unchanged from the original, an afterthought at best. This is a movie that is more about the experience of watching it than the actual content of the movie.
