James Cameron has another hit on his hands according to Avatar: The Way of Water‘s early reviews and their very positive nature. The filmmaker has spent more than 10 years developing the sequel to Avatar, and that passage of time created some doubt that the sequel would be worth the wait. The first trailers helped erase some of that doubt due to the impressive CGI displayed in Avatar 2‘s footage. And while there has been much debate about if the sequel can possibly be a box office success (especially in comparison to the highest-grossing movie ever), questions about whether Avatar: The Way of Water‘s story will match the visuals remained.
Following the film’s world premiere and the first Avatar 2 reactions surfacing online, the review embargo has now lifted, resulting in some early Avatar: The Way of Water reviews being posted. Here is a SPOILER-FREE round up of what critics are saying about James Cameron’s new movie:
Mae Adbulbaki, Screen Rant
Cameron, who co-wrote the script with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, returns to Pandora, offering viewers even more stunning visuals, a personal, more emotional story, and incredible underwater sequences that put every other film’s technical achievements to shame. The Way of Water is overlong and stretched thin on story, but the Avatar sequel is beautiful, with lush world-building and characters that add depth.
Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
The film represents a decade of behind-the-scenes work: innovations in visual effects technology, digital cinematography, and performance capture, in addition to untold millions of dollars in production costs. Every cent and every second spent on making this film can be seen onscreen. “The Way of Water” is the magic of movies made manifest, a three-hour-plus epic that brings us to a new world and makes it thrillingly tactile in ways that no other film has done before. In other words: James Cameron has done it again.
William Bibbiani, The Wrap
After some pacing issues in the first act and some odd story decisions in the second, the film’s breathtaking climax completely sneaks up on you. You might think the film has a lot more twists and turns to go, since there’s lot of running time left, but Cameron stages the finale of “Avatar: The Way of Water” like an incredible, ever-evolving action sequence where locations, dangers and imminent threats shift dramatically, sometimes on a dime. It’s like watching a tidal wave start miles in the distance as a tiny bump in the ocean. By the time it crests, whatever the film’s many other flaws may be, we are invested, and we are ultimately rewarded with a truly spectacular, awe-inspiring finale.
David Rooney, THR
In terms of narrative sophistication and even more so dialogue, this $350 million sequel is almost as basic as its predecessor, even feeble at times. But the expanded, bio-diverse world-building pulls you in, the visual spectacle keeps you mesmerized, the passion for environmental awareness is stirring and the warfare is as visceral and exciting as any multiplex audience could desire.
Developing…
Sources: Various [see above]