Once more, James Cameron has characters abandoning a ship that's fallen over sideways and is about to sink in "Avatar: The Way of Water."
The "Titanic" Oscar winner includes a knowing nod to that movie in "Water's" climactic sequence, in which heroes and villains are stuck in a sinking vessel, hoping not to drown. Unlike the first "Avatar," primarily set in a forest on a moon called Pandora, the new one mostly takes place in a watery corner of Pandora. That's where the Sullys resettle after dad Jake's (Sam Worthington voiced and did the motion capture) vicious enemy Quaritch (Stephen Lang) chases them from their home.
Both Jake and Quaritch are not quite themselves anymore — their consciousnesses were implanted in avatars that remake them as Na'vi, the Windex-colored people of Pandora. Jake has married Na'vi Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and they have a bunch of kids who shake out like those on a family sitcom: a do-gooder, a rebel, the adorable youngest, etc. (If you haven't seen "Avatar" since its 2009 release, it may be worth boning up on it because there's no hand-holding in the sequel, which assumes we know this territory.)
