01. Perhaps the biggest surprise: “Avatar 2” is not a Sam Worthington film, it’s a Stephen Lang film. The villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch, becomes the antihero – the only character to complete a true (anti)hero’s journey. Responsible for this are Quaritch’s unexpected fatherly feelings for a little human boy, Spider (Jack Champion). The child makes him doubt whether his campaign of annihilation makes sense. Previously, we’d come to know Quaritch more as a parody of the Joe Dante-esque “Small Soldier” only in pompous.
Rating: 4/5
02. “The Way of Water” is accordingly, apart from “The Empire Strikes Back”, the first revenge flick that not only tells the story of a good soldier at blockbuster level, but also the story of a villain. The first “Avatar” film was about the exploitation of an ecosystem made up of neural mega-networks. In the sequel, that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s about much smaller things. The film may not have a story, but at least it tells it well. Everything revolves around the duel between the colonel and his corporal, who feels betrayed by him. The private feud receives top priority for the “sky people”, the tyranny over a new living world comes second.
3/5
03. “Avatar” showed the rescue of a paraplegic, who, as a blue giant, is not only given a super body, but also super powers. This was not unproblematic, as the longed-for transformation into an avatar suggested that not all physicalities were of equal value. The protagonist, played by Sam Worthington, is the only weak point in this ensemble. He is the clamoring father of a large family who constantly wants to flee, constantly complains about his second son (and only accepts him as full after he saves his life) and has to be pointed out by his opponent Quaritch that he has killed countless people Na’vi could have prevented it if he had faced the duel alone from the start. Quaritch bases his hatred on the ex-soldier on the murder of his Marines, his “sons”. This thought is new. And for this character, as a movens that didn’t play a role in part 1, not very convincing. Quaritch was never a team player.
2/5
04. One would love to have the production sessions with Sam “What’s he doing today anyway?” Worthington listened. The 46-year-old, who was hailed as an upcoming star by director James Cameron in 2009, hasn’t played a single significant role since Part 1. Maybe Worthington asked Cameron to be in this film at least once as a human, not just an avatar, just so people could see him again and his market value would increase again. Sigourney Weaver can also be seen as herself. On the other hand: Kate Winslet is also there, like Worthington only as an avatar, and it is even less obvious which of the indigenous people she embodies. After all: the renunciation of a Sully in human form also offers the renunciation of a White Savior, as in the first “Avatar” pushed to the extreme.
3/5
05. For the first time since Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) there are animated fantasy figures that don’t always appear uncanny. The blue-green Na’vi called Metkayina are the best, not the blue ones. Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) as well as Tsireiya (Bailey Bass), a mixture of Disney Lilo and Aloha from Hawaii, do not look like CGI pixels, but like real, but also transformed people.
5/5
06. If you want to show that baddies don’t take a break, you give them something that initially seems counterintuitive: a coffee cup. It has a calming effect. Both Colonel Quaritch and his superior, General Frances Ardmore (Edie Falco), sip their hot broth from the command center while their fighter jets hunt down Pandora whales. In other words, whatever I do, I work, and I always have only my goal in mind.
4/5
07. Pandora’s super whale also serves us earthlings inherent fantasy that there are creatures on the planet who might be smarter than Homo sapiens. That’s good because it helps us not to take ourselves too seriously, knowing our place in the ecosystem. Humans take the place of the creatures that Tolkien reserved for them in The Lord of the Rings: they are filthy, rowdy, anthropological oddities. Quaritch’s mercenary troop also looks ugly incognito, as an avatar troop. The elves (here: Na’vi) are the noble beings.
4/5
08. James Cameron is the king of action movies. He is the inventor of the 4th act. This means that the finale is simply followed by another finale – known from “Aliens”, “Terminator 2” and “The Abyss”. The final fight on a tanker is also a series of high points, parcour after parcour and hand-to-hand combat after hand-to-hand combat. This fight cascade begins 50 minutes before the end of the film – so at this point you have no idea that it’s already about everything. However, Cameron, who also co-wrote the screenplay, could have put a little more effort into the targeting and causes of the action scenes. Each fight – there are four big set pieces – is based on the same initial situation: the four Sully children do things they shouldn’t do, father Sully then has to punch them out together with his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). This leads to tedious repetitions: the plot only develops further when something forbidden is done. If pedantic patriarch Sully could have asserted his authority ahead of time every time, with the kids under control, there would be peace – but then we wouldn’t have a film either.
3/5
“The Abyss” reviewed:
09. Another story weakness: With the human foster child Spider there is a family member who – we won’t spoil anything at this point – should end up being very, very angry with stepmother Neytiri. A clarifying conversation between the two would have been mandatory. Surprisingly, Cameron didn’t see it that way. In general, the boy fell down a little too quickly after he was captured by Quaritch.
2/5
10. “For much of the rest of my film life, maybe the rest of my life as a film director,” said James Cameron, “I’ll spend with my ‘Avatar’ sequels.” Perhaps this prospect of the future made the 68-year-old nostalgic, because the 4th act in particular also seems like a small tribute to his Movies 1997’s Titanic and 1989’s The Abyss. We see two Na’vi children who, like Rose and Jack once did, lie down on the last piece of ship that remains of the giant sea cruiser and also will soon go down. Sully and his second-born Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), meanwhile, resort to breath training in dire need of air to make the ascent from the flooded lower deck with enough air reserves – a tribute to Virgil (Ed Harris) and Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), who once, in order not to drown, tried to hone a certain survival technique and thus provided the crowning moment in Cameron’s filmography.
4/5
Review of Top Gun: Maverick:
11. A competition at the next Oscars is announced, at least in the “Visual Effects” category. It’s a fundamental decision. Are Top Gun: Maverick’s Practical Effects honored, which is the real Tom Cruise in actual Mach A Thousand Puke Bombers, or these awesome f/x, live action, and performance capture tricks seen here. Old school versus new school, the comeback of the 1980s versus the modern era. Both works are, as the saying goes, “made for the big screen”. “The Way of Water” should win in this category at the Academy Awards – “Top Gun” for camera, editing, sound and sound editing. The fighter pilot film didn’t even have to be shot in 3D to be convincing. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune”, staged much more conservatively than “Avatar”, with its almost static depiction of battles, whether of foot soldiers or spaceships, was ultimately also awarded the Effects Oscar. It’s amazing how dominant James Cameron can be at the top of the field again, having made his first film in 13 years with The Way of Water.
5/5
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