Astonishing! Enthralling! Exciting! Immersive! None of these words could sensibly be applied to the three-and-a-quarter-hour Wet Smurfahontas stodgeathon that is Avatar: The Way of Water. A lumbering, humourless, tech-driven damp squib of a movie, this long-awaited (or dreaded?) sequel to one of the highest grossing films of all time builds upon the mighty flaws of its predecessor, delivering a patience-testing fantasy dirge that is longer, uglier and (amazingly) even more clumsily scripted than its predecessor, blending trite characterisation with sub-Roger Dean 70s album-cover designs and thunderously underwhelming action sequences. In water.
We pick up several years after the wholly forgettable antics of 2009’s Avatar. On the distant world Pandora, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has gone native, raising a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) after shedding his human skin to inhabit his alien avatar (see previous film). When the “sky people” of Earth come looking for a fight, among other things, the forest-friendly Sullys are forced to flee to distant archipelagos where the water-tribes dwell. Here, they must abandon their tree-hugging lifestyle and learn the ways of the reef people, who have thicker tails and are a bit more turquoise. Really.
