The long awaited sequel to Avatar has hit the home market after grossing $2.257bn at the box office with some territories not yet completed. That means, if you give it around 1% to compensate for inflation over the period of 13 years, the franchise has grossed some $5.4bn for an outlay of around $700m. I'd call that good investment.
OK, to the nitty gritty - should you rent or buy this for home viewing or wait for it to hit Disney+ for free and not line the deep pockets of Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainments? If you liked the first one, you are going to like this for it's visuals alone - but is it worth paying? Some people here have given it 1/10, which is a very unfair mark for any film as you'll see - I now usually automatically mark films 10 if there are more than five 1's as I believe that no mainstream movies can be marked lower than a 4/10 (poor) or a 3/10 (bad) since there must be some redeeming features which make them watchable (5/10). If you don't watch the film all the way through, you shouldn't mark it (according to Barry Norman - well know film critic). Extreme low marking (1/10) fails the whole system and can only be counteracted by an extreme mark of 10 to balance the equation. Here's the breakdown in my opinion and why I came out with a 8/10.
1. Script and concept We already know that the story of Avatar is a relatively simple one along the lines of Dances With Wolves/Pocahontas/The Trail Of Tears/The Emerald Forest, etc, so it's nothing new. However, Cameron has made it his own with his blue world of creatures in a new situation. To be fair, you really can't go wrong with this concept at all, so he simply took the next step, rightly or wrongly in the eyes of the voting public - there seems to be mixed reviews, but many feel the plot in The Way of Water was contrived. Personally I didn't feel it was terrible, and there is the fact that it is a continuation of the story. So, I would tend towards saying it is OK, which is a 6/10.
2. Direction Cameron is one of the greatest film directors that has ever lived - the direction is superb, so you have to give it 10/10.
3. Acting Again, some of the world's best actors are in this franchise, so there is no issues here. The actors didn't let the side down at all but in some places I felt it was a little forced - 9/10 .
4. Technical aspects (camera, sound, editing, etc) - well ... it was stunning in every way, like the first film, but better. 10/10
5. SFX - Truthfully, it was flawless from the capture of the performances to the incredible animations, the like that hasn't been seen before in terms of quality. I watched the first film before watching the second and I was blown away by the improvements in technical visuals -- 10/10
6. My personal feeling - what niggled me throughout the entire movie is that the original antagonist in the first movie had been killed off at the end. Despite the fact that Stephen Lang is fabulous at paying the bad guy/hard-ass in movies he was one of the best baddies in the modern eras of film and the explanation for his return was not entirely unreasonable, I felt it was a mistake ... so I'm docking the score buy 1 mark.
Totals - 45 out of 50 for the marking, which is 9/10, less 1/10 for my little gripe, which I considered a major flaw in the concept = 8/10.
Now you could have different ideas about the way you feel those marks should be apportioned, but if you were fair this film could never go below 7/10 (good). I personally was considering that, since the concept of the human boy rescuing his engineered "avatar" father was a little over the top in my opinion, but I didn't feel I should be the one to change the director's vision of the movie since he knows where he's going with this concept for the next film which is apparently already in the can ...
So my real mark is 8/10, though I could see how it might be 7/10 ... but absolutely no less than 7/10 (which is good). However, since the 1/10 brigade is out in force, I have to mark it 10.
OK, to the nitty gritty - should you rent or buy this for home viewing or wait for it to hit Disney+ for free and not line the deep pockets of Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainments? If you liked the first one, you are going to like this for it's visuals alone - but is it worth paying? Some people here have given it 1/10, which is a very unfair mark for any film as you'll see - I now usually automatically mark films 10 if there are more than five 1's as I believe that no mainstream movies can be marked lower than a 4/10 (poor) or a 3/10 (bad) since there must be some redeeming features which make them watchable (5/10). If you don't watch the film all the way through, you shouldn't mark it (according to Barry Norman - well know film critic). Extreme low marking (1/10) fails the whole system and can only be counteracted by an extreme mark of 10 to balance the equation. Here's the breakdown in my opinion and why I came out with a 8/10.
1. Script and concept We already know that the story of Avatar is a relatively simple one along the lines of Dances With Wolves/Pocahontas/The Trail Of Tears/The Emerald Forest, etc, so it's nothing new. However, Cameron has made it his own with his blue world of creatures in a new situation. To be fair, you really can't go wrong with this concept at all, so he simply took the next step, rightly or wrongly in the eyes of the voting public - there seems to be mixed reviews, but many feel the plot in The Way of Water was contrived. Personally I didn't feel it was terrible, and there is the fact that it is a continuation of the story. So, I would tend towards saying it is OK, which is a 6/10.
2. Direction Cameron is one of the greatest film directors that has ever lived - the direction is superb, so you have to give it 10/10.
3. Acting Again, some of the world's best actors are in this franchise, so there is no issues here. The actors didn't let the side down at all but in some places I felt it was a little forced - 9/10 .
4. Technical aspects (camera, sound, editing, etc) - well ... it was stunning in every way, like the first film, but better. 10/10
5. SFX - Truthfully, it was flawless from the capture of the performances to the incredible animations, the like that hasn't been seen before in terms of quality. I watched the first film before watching the second and I was blown away by the improvements in technical visuals -- 10/10
6. My personal feeling - what niggled me throughout the entire movie is that the original antagonist in the first movie had been killed off at the end. Despite the fact that Stephen Lang is fabulous at paying the bad guy/hard-ass in movies he was one of the best baddies in the modern eras of film and the explanation for his return was not entirely unreasonable, I felt it was a mistake ... so I'm docking the score buy 1 mark.
Totals - 45 out of 50 for the marking, which is 9/10, less 1/10 for my little gripe, which I considered a major flaw in the concept = 8/10.
Now you could have different ideas about the way you feel those marks should be apportioned, but if you were fair this film could never go below 7/10 (good). I personally was considering that, since the concept of the human boy rescuing his engineered "avatar" father was a little over the top in my opinion, but I didn't feel I should be the one to change the director's vision of the movie since he knows where he's going with this concept for the next film which is apparently already in the can ...
So my real mark is 8/10, though I could see how it might be 7/10 ... but absolutely no less than 7/10 (which is good). However, since the 1/10 brigade is out in force, I have to mark it 10.
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