If I had two separate categories to judge James Cameron’s motion-capture epic “Avatar: The Way of Water,” I’d give it four stars for Visuals and two and a half for Story, and I’m in charge of the math here so I’m awarding three and a half stars to “TWAW” for some of the most dazzling, vibrant and gorgeous images I’ve ever seen on the big screen.
That’s more than enough to forgive a borderline corny, frequently repetitive, cliché-riddled storyline that features elements of everything from “Free Willy” to “Titanic” to “Die Hard” to “Apocalypse Now” and I swear there’s even a sequence that reminded me of that scene in the “Karate Kid” where poor Daniel gets jumped by those bullies in the Halloween skeleton costumes.
