Back in 2009, James Cameron’s eye-boggling sci-fi epic Avatar blew a gazillion minds. A hybrid of live-action and revolutionary CGI and visual effects, it proved spectacularly successful at the box office. It was also half an hour shorter than this sequel. The filmmakers are gambling that fans want more, not less, of the lushest moon in the cosmos.
They could be right. The 14-year-old boy I took to the screening thought Avatar 2 was a vast improvement on the original. Asked what he liked best, he replied (in the reverent tone he usually reserves for discussions of Formula 1 drivers and the YouTuber KSI), “Everything!”