I preface this with the fact I very much watch films at face value. So I went to see this with junior last night and in the main I thought it was pretty good…. …with two exceptions.

A) the Americanisms have very much fallen into the script and it’s become too much “hoo rah” action than eco messaging for me

B) Edie Falco’s performance. God help me I’m a huge Soprano’s fan and have respect for her part there, but that was Carmella Soprano in uniform all day long and it really tainted the film for me.

Would I see 3 & 4 at the Cinema? Not sure, I know it’s all about $$ but perhaps some things are best left alone.

I will preface this by saying that I believe no film should be taken at face value.

I thought as a visual spectacle it is genuinely impressive. The thought, research, and detail that has gone into the Pandora world-building is nothing short of spectacular. As a piece of storytelling and “film” it’s perhaps some of the most ill conceived half-assed horseshit I ever had to sit through in my life (well since the last one, really), and some of the cultural appropriation is bordering on racist. The “plot” for what it’s worth – “The Iraq war was bad, save the whale” is dumb as ****

I know Cameron thinks that the first part of that is enough, and it reminds me of the fashion of the 18thC for “Tableau Spectaculare” where one is invited just to admire the presentation, or a lame present dressed in the most effictacious wrapping, but it really really isn’t.

It’s Drivel, pretty drivel fo’shure, but drivel nonetheless.

nickc plus lots.
The visuals were mesmerising, so much so ,that at points I almost zoned out 😃
Won’t be going anywhere near Avatar3

Absolutely stunning especially in 3D, yes the story is weak but it was never going to be amazing. I mean T2 is hardly a masterpiece of story telling.

yes the story is weak but it was never going to be amazing.

He obviously couldn’t find a story to rip off this time.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2o8xxRV]Avatar[/url] by John Stanley, on Flickr

The world is fantastic the rest not so much. Avatar 3 should be an Our Planet style documentary with Attenborough doing the voice over. Just a Pandora wildlife extravaganza!

Saw it in 2d a couple of weeks ago and loved it – going tomorrow for the IMAX 3d version for the full visual impact. Agree the story is lame, and there a big plot holes (where did Jake’s new water pals go during the big set piece finale – they were with him to start with then nowhere to be seen!?) but really who cares, what an amazing piece of art work and film production it is!

I enjoyed it, the world and cgi were very good.
I did think during it that it just shows how humans destroy everything we have, i know it’s just a story but what a shit race we are portrayed as….

For the visual’s I’ll go. I rewatched Avarar at home on our projector, and my word it looked amazing compared to the TV but it was much much bigger. IMAX wil be a possibility !

He obviously couldn’t find a story to rip off this time.

That’s original.

Great film. I loved it. Who cares if it wasn’t the strongest story ever. 3+ hours just flew by.

Who cares if it wasn’t the strongest story ever

I care. Saying it wasn’t a strong story is like assembling a Fox 38 from toilet paper rolls, and getting a really good artist to paint them up, and then saying you don’t mind that the compression damping is a bit iffy.

did the whole 3d experience with it
think the last film i did in 3d was Avatar…
Also the 1st time my 11 year old had ever seen in 3d

It was exactly what i expected, and i left the cinema totally content.
What really to surprised me is how much i accepted the cgi characters as real… to the point that when i was thinking about it, i probably wouldn’t be shocked if you told me the humans were cgi…

My lad loved it, had a quick wee break as expected.. but didn’t utter a word, or ask how long was left…
only downside was the family that decided to bring a 4? year old to a 3 hour film, and when the kid started chatting away continuously, didn’t take a walk with the kid….(issue is the parents not the child btw)

3/5. Weak repeat of the first story.

Poorly edited – some scenes are tediously long.
Excessive exposition for some things – the world, the Sullys, etc. not so much for other things – the trip back to earth, the remaining or new expeditionary force established by their return, the flamethrower/forest burner/retro thruster landing that goes on longer than some short movies.

The whole thing up until the water scenes is like a video game. Then it is more like a movie…of a video game.

Pretty but not great. Would not recommend it much to anyone.

I have to say chaps, I am so totally surprised by these reviews.

Saw it last night and agree that as a story it’s massively full of holes and resolves absolutely nothing, but it’s very pretty and did 3d as well as the first one. Re the comment about Iraq above I thought it had more echoes of Vietnam/apocalypse now,but overall the messaging is almost as unsubtle as the last series of Dr who.

It is entertaining, I’m not usually keen on films over 2 hours but it kept me interested. Could have done with an intermission though took a while for my legs to start working again. It is a sequel so you’ve got to expect similar characters in similar situations, I thought it a cross between Camerons greatest hits – Avatar and Titanic 😉

You can see how they are set up for more sequels as they pretty much won one battle but not the war, so nobody was in a much different place by the end. They did skip over the return of the sky people and how they became established – that could have been it’s own movie, ending with Sully going into hiding.

More an observation than a complaint – compared to the first there are not many humans so it has to stand on largely CGI characters, which I think it succeeds as you get drawn in. I was initially prepared to dislike the children but got drawn into their relationships and motivation.

I really enjoyed it. Mesmerising visually. Obviously it wasn’t a deep, meaningful, life-changing movie. But not everyone is looking for that. Excellent watch.

Yo! I went to see this last night – paid for and like on a date kinda thing, so I didn’t really mind what I went to see (long as Tom Hanks wasn’t in it).
It was pretty much as silly as I expected, but I didn’t expect to be so immersed in the story. The plot holes came and went without me getting all sneery as is my usual. I did laugh out loud when the whale thing nutted the harpoon.
And it’s hilarious how BAD MEN are REALLY BAD. Nods to Apocalypse Now and Jurassic Park were fun (if not intentional!).
Agree with a lot of the +ve and -ve things said above.
But I lasted 3 hours without getting bored anyway. Not sure I’ll bother with the next 2 as Cameron has made 3 sequels all at once. Bonkers.

(ps. when the kid had the fit – where did that helicopter thing come from? That was a bit baffling 😆 )

The heli came from their researcher mates who you saw at the beginning, when they moved to the caves.

Terrible terrible story, much like the first film. Lazy writing, not great acting and full of things that p’d me off.

Good/great effects and that’s about it.

The heli came from their researcher mates who you saw at the beginning

Oh cheers, thought it had to be something that… wondered how they summoned it so quickly. Ah well, not a film to analyse closely at all 😀

I thought as a visual spectacle it is genuinely impressive. The thought, research, and detail that has gone into the Pandora world-building is nothing short of spectacular. As a piece of storytelling and “film” it’s perhaps some of the most ill conceived half-assed horseshit I ever had to sit through in my life (well since the last one, really), and some of the cultural appropriation is bordering on racist. The “plot” for what it’s worth – “The Iraq war was bad, save the whale” is dumb as ****

+1

Found myself entertained and impressed by the CGI, but it has some massive holes identified above. What people don’t seem to have mentioned is that it felt like the last hour was all battle/ fighting which is way too much fighting for me (the film was also too long in general).

Yeah, dunno why we had to go through all the prolonged rescue stuff after all the prolonged fighting had stopped. Hey watch out person who lives in water and can hold their breath like a **** seal! the water is about to come up over your chin! etc.

For all the cgi and impressiveness of the Alien world the thing that I found most annoying with this and the first world was the lack of alien’ness. Everything, absolutely everything had a human and earth quality. No matter how good the cgi it made it very dull….

Kinda to be expected in a film where “Aliens” are just elongated blue versions of ourselves though eh! 😀

True, it’s just lazy though. Theres good sci-fi and then there’s crap like this. It’s just the lack of originality that really P’d me off in the first one, this one is worse. Not an original thought in it.

Enjoyed it.

People seem to want to hold this to some sort of higher standard than other films for some unfathomable reason.

Yes, the story and characterisation isn’t the Banshees of Inisherin – but it is a hell of a lot more mature and considered than Top Gun: Maverick – which has gone down a storm and nobody seems to want to poke holes in.

Cameron’s always been a crowd pleaser who asks interesting questions – but never let those interesting questions get in the way of the crowd pleasing. He poses the questions. He’s not writing high art social commentary – but he DOES get those sorts of questions into mainstream films, and in front of mainstream audiences.

I’m OK with that. I think it’s a genuine achievement. Marvel movies rot the mind – they’re fun, an awful lot of fun, but they’re brain-cancer.

Cameron’s Avatar films are Marvel-movies with an intellectual underpinning and a worthwhile message. They exceed them all IMO.

So I watched it at the IMAX. I don’t much disagree with the above. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I thoroughly enjoyed Banshees of Inisherin, just in a different way.

Visually great. Plot meh.

Can we discuss the abomination that is high frame rate though? It’s like watching a video game and serves to do nothing but make it look like a video game. Highlights the ropey CGI.

Almost as jarring are the points where it drops back to 24FPS for a few seconds because they used the wrong camera or something. I thought the high FPS wouldn’t bother me, but I’d never pay to see a film in this format again.