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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

 


5/10


 

Starring

Sam Worthington

Zoe Saldaña

Stephen Lang

 

Directed by James Cameron

 

One of the major challenges of this movie is the length and uneven pacing which made it boring at times. It was a miracle that I could survive seeing this movie without falling asleep. I yawned so much from boredom, that I doubted at times my ability to see this movie through to the end.

This movie is James Cameron Everest which he wants to conquer by all means necessary. The way to achieve this is hoping for the box-office returns of this and the third part will make the way easier for Disney to venture into a part four and five.

This movie is a sequel thirteen years in the making, the first Avatar was in 2009 and its plot was ok, but I did not crave ever seeing a part two. Avatar one felt like a Pocahontas rip off with amazing graphics. But Cameron has always wanted to finish his story of the people of Pandora so here we are in Part two.

It is hard to review something that some see negativity as biff. Reality is the movie's story felt like a two-year-old foot in his daddy's size 46/12 (Euro/US) shoes. Too many things happening based on a small story with bland dialogue.

Avatar made us understand that in this new world death has no meaning. As we see the return of Colonel Quaritch. Now we know you can just backup the consciousness and reload it in an Avatar. This reminded me a lot of the Book, Altered Carbon which was also made to a series on Netflix.

I did not like the idea of bringing back characters to pose for nostalgia and tease there is more to their stories in the movies to come. Also, the movie wasted a more solid plot of why the humans need to invade, the invasion plot switched from survival to serum harvesting.

I mention serum and you may wonder what happened to unobtanium?

The one thing about this movie is that it seems hooked on the need to invade. I was hoping for something new happening in Pandora is why I did not see the trailers, I wanted to be surprised. But like in the first movie when humans want unobtanium. In this movie, it is a serum for antiaging. At first it seems we have overcome that need for greed and it is just the need for existence. But Cameron seems to be hooked on greed, so we no longer hear nor is the name unobtanium even mentioned. Now we humans want the serum from a creature that after we have gotten what we want, it dies. I wonder what the end game is here, like killing all the creatures and running out of serum? If the story was about the humans wanting to capture and take these creatures to rear them for their serum and the Na'vi are trying to stop the humans, that will be a good spin, but I do not have the Cameron pull. So, the first idea of wanting to take over the world because earth is dying is later sidelined for the serum harvest. And why will humans do this right? No, they must desecrate and pillage to get what they want.

Pocahontas, the idea of part one still lives on. We have the newly chosen one who is meant to do the reuniting and bringing tribes together Kiri, we have not fully seen the hero gymnastic this character will pull, but the emphasis on future parts shows she will have a major role to play soon. Also, we are supposed to be left to wonder how Grace was reborn in the avatar world and crave seeing more of the parts to see the doors close on many unanswered questions.

I know the thrill I get from seeing great technology being used. The underwater scenes are amazing, yet still this movie has killed any thread of excitement I could have for seeing a part three. I know this movie has its huge fan base and me not subscribing to it, is not hurting anyone.

Strange World (2022)

Strange World (2022)



5/10

 

Starring the voices of

Jake Gyllenhaal

Dennis Quaid

Jaboukie Young-White

Gabrielle Union

Lucy Liu

 

Directed by Don Hall

 

Strange World is a Disney box-office flop, and it is not only the bad marketing for this animation that caused it, but the plot is boring and a bit of too much over-recycled things we have seen before.

Their 61st theatrical production was not impressive at all and the movie’s LGBT representation that seems to be one thing people are talking about, was not as deep as they make it and was not all up in your face as some said. The animation seems to have a blend of CGI and 2D, the voice acting was not so spectacular like the other things I have seen. Then the characters are too one dimensional, which added to the predictability of the animation and made it more like a TV animated movie. You would expect more complex characters and deeper plots from a theatrical animation.

When the movie made the big reveal at the end, it was nice and caught my attention. It also makes you do a lot of think back, but it was at the end after the boredom had made me dislike this animation. Other than that, the movie fails to follow the trend set by the other Disney fun and engaging animations before it since Frozen got all of us singing Let it Go.

The movie plot is about a place called Avalonia. It is surrounded by mountains and the people need aid of explorers to discover better ways to make the land better. The hero and top explorer in the land is Jaeger Clade. Clade and his family (including his son Searcher) are adventurers who go about doing the exploring for new things and places in their world.

Searcher does not want to be an explorer like his father and during their exploration they come across a plant Searcher names Pando.

Searcher and the rest believe this new discovery is enough to dig into and see how it can change things for them in Avalonia, but Jaeger wanted to venture on. He did, leaving his team behind.

Twenty-five years later Pando has become everything in Avalonia, their source of power used to fly their craft and power their lives. Then it happens, after years of living on Pando, the plant is now dying. So, an expedition is needed to the center of the land to discover what is causing this and to find out how to end it.

I find it hard to be able to recommend for anyone to go see this animation, because the chances are it will go over the young ones head and you may end up finding it very boring as I did.