Knee-jerk review: "Avatar - The Way of Water"

1. It's an undeniably beautiful film.  If cinema is about transporting audiences to another time and place, then it succeeds tenfold.  The visuals are a knockout.
2. Writer-director James Cameron remains a top shelf action director, especially when it comes to those "everything goes wrong" sequences that so skillfully ratchets up the tension.
3. Few sequels are ever truly demanded by audiences.  They're almost always a business decision by studios and filmmakers to chase box office money.  But this sequel in particular seems to be answering a question no one was really asking.
4. But when Cameron wants to make a movie, for now Hollywood will open the checkbook.  That's what happens when your last two movies break all global box office records.  (We do often wonder what other awesome movies we might have gotten had he not decided to spend 15+ years obsessed with this franchise.)
5. It is pretty amazing that it doesn't take long to get totally immersed in the film and forget you're watching ten-foot-tall blue cat people.  If you think about it, it's totally insane.
6. This is not a lean and mean movie where the three-hour running time just flies by.  It often feels like a real slog.  We were frequently checking our watch to work out how close we were to the ending.
7. The middle hour in particular - where our hero family gets touchy-feely with nature and learns the "way of water" - probably is a half-hour too long.  Let's get on with it.
8. Film Twitter has been pretty snarky towards the human boy who hangs out with the Navi aliens, calling him "Tarzan," but we found his character's situation pretty engaging.
9. The whaling sequence was uncomfortable.  That was probably the point, but we didn't need that level of icky detail to preach to us the horrors and cruelty of chasing and killing smart animals for so little need.
10. Right or wrong, the ending has very strong Titanic vibes.  That's not to say it didn't work.
11. Interesting that the hero of the first movie is now a father and presented in the sequel as the typical distracted, brusque parent who doesn't properly listen to or trust his kids.
12. The suggestion of an immaculate conception may be a corny, self-serious myth-making bridge too far for us.
13. It's done as creatively as possible, but it's still a letdown that the sequel finds a way to bring back the villain from the first movie despite the fact we all saw him killed dead.
14. It's hard to miss the guerrilla themes of "never fight a war on your enemy's turf."
15. Movies that earn billions at the box office, like Titanic or the Star Wars and Avengers movies, rely on multiple viewings.  Repeat customers are the key.  We don't know if this movie will inspire that sort of fervor (and apparently, it needs to collect billions with B to earn back its budget).  It's just too dang long.

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