AVATAR 2: Immersive AF Imagery, Un-Immersive AF Story

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

(Dir. James Cameron, 2022)

In the 13 years since AVATAR grossed billions, won Oscars and became one of the biggest movies ever, I’ve never heard anybody say that they couldn’t wait for a sequel. Have you? I mean, despite its brand, James Cameron’s blue people utopian epic appears to have no real fanbase. Whenever I see it posted about on social media, the comments are usually negative; when my film buff friends in my feeds post pictures of their movie memorabilia, I never see any AVATAR stuff; and in all my conversations about movies in the dozen years, I’ve never heard any interest, or speculation about what would happen in a follow-up.

But here we are, after years of Cameron hammering away on unleashing a further franchise, with the second entry in the saga, AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. But will it be an event movie with anything near the power of the first one’s release in December, 2009? Doubtfully, although I bet it’ll sill make major bank, because while it’s visually a stunning achievement with some of the most immersive cinematic 3D imagery I’ve ever experienced, it has one of the most un-immersive narratives I’ve ever experienced as well. In other words, ATWOW is a beautifully packaged big-ass bore.

Essentially, Cameron, co-writing with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (who wrote the recent run of PLANET OF THE APES movies), has fashioned exactly the AVATAR sequel that one would expect beat-by-beat with Sam Worthington reprising his role as U.S.-marine-turned-tall-lanky-blue-alien Jake Sully, fighting to protect Pandora from another attack by who they call the “Sky People.”

Our blue lead, Worthington, and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) now with obnoxiously precocious - god, I hate when they hiss - kids (Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and a scruffy blonde human hang-around named Spider (Jack Champion), have to relocate after the evil clichéd Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), brings the RDA (the fictional Resources Development Administration) down on their Na’vi land to colonize and exploit the movie’s McGuffin (the Unobtanium for now!), a chemical that can halt aging (“it just stops it!” somebody says in an example of the screenplay’s sparkling banter).

The bulk of the film’s often unbearable middle third involves the blue fam assimilating with the aquatic green reef people that live on the Pandoran shores. That’s where we get a lot of pretentious talk about respecting the liquid life ‘n such. The closest to entertained, and maybe a little touched, I was during these strained sequences, came from a subplot involving the second-oldest son’s friendship with a whale-like sea creature, but even that was over-earnestly tinged with cringe.

The green people of the Metkayina tribe, are headed by Cliff Curtis as Tonowari, and an unrecognizable Kate Winslet (first time ever in motion capture!) as Ronal, who help bring some gravitas to the ham-fisted dialogue that clunks through the meticulously crafted set-pieces, but like everything else, are merely additional decoration.

Sigourney Weaver returns in a weird way as a different character – Jake and Neytiri’s pregnant teenage daughter, Kiri – which I don’t want to understand, and there are human cameos by Giovanni Ribisi, Edie Falco, and Brendan Cowell, but the most wasted performance has to by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as a corrupted biologist who has one good line (“That’s why I drink”).

Way before the halfway mark through three hours and 15 minutes, AVATAR 2 loses its eye-popping power, and morphs into a slog that I couldn’t shake no matter what the spectacle-ambitious Cameron kept throwing at me. Amazing effects, and innovative state of the art designs just can’t disguise what a profoundly unengaging, and just plain uninteresting experience this long-gestating, little-enthused about sequel is. 

ATWOW was the first film in ages that I had to wear 3D glasses for (at a damn Lie-MAX too), and I think I’m deciding now that I’m not gonna do the same for AVATARs 3, 4, and 5 (due in 2024, 2026, and 2028). Maybe I’ll feel different in a few years, but right now, I’m pretty done with all this expensive blue blather.

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AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR: The Best And Worst Of Marvel Movie Motifs All In One Place

Now playing at every multiplex in the MCU:

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

(Dirs. Anthony Russo & Joe Russo, 2018) 

This highly anticipated superhero epic begins with the familiar montage of imagery of iconic characters quickly blending into the logo for Marvel Studios. The “I” and “O” in the capital letters though are highlighted this time as a “10,” which seems to shout “10 years of kicking every other franchise’s ass!”

And it’s true, since IRON MAN came out in 2008, the studio, under the wing of Disney, has put out an interlocking series of nearly 20 blockbusters that have formed a business model that every other movie series, from DC to STAR WARS and beyond, has been trying to emulate. I.e. everybody wants to have a Cinematic Universe just like Marvel’s.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR has been teased throughout Marvel’s movies mostly in after credits stingers which have featured a big bad ass villain named Thanos (a CGI-ed Josh Brolin, who wonderfully chews through CGI setpiece after CGI setpiece), and the ongoing MacGuffin of the infinity stones – six powerful highly sought after different colored gems that can be used to destroy planets and conquer the universe.

So the Avengers join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Strange, and Black Panther, among others, to stop Thanos from getting the Infinity Stones through another round of over-the-top battles that really wore me out in its crammed packed last third.

But large chunks of the movie are a lot of fun. Robert Downey Jr., whose ninth time this is in the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man, is again an enjoyably funny presence as he continues his mentorship to Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and snarkily sparring off with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, and an equally amusing Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Starlord.

The Guardians of the Galaxy, who hit the screen to the Spinner’s “Rubberband Man” (an obvious nod to their ‘70s mixtape soundtrack trope), are granted with a lot of screen-time as Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is Thano’s daughter, something that I guess was revealed in a previous movie but I didn’t remember it, and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and a now teengage Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) split with the others including Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) to accompany Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to some other realm to get some weapon to take Thanos down with.

The audience I was in cheered when the movie cut to the lavish, and, of course, fictional African nation of Wakanda, ruled by T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), obviously because his film, BLACK PANTHER, which just came out a few months ago was one of the biggest hits of the MCU (and of all-time), and considered a game changer for the franchise. Boseman’s T’Challa brings the goods, but his part despite that Thano’s army of crazy four-armed alien creatures invades Wakanda, is essentially a glorified cameo.

Same goes for Chris Evans returning as Steve Rogers, the retired Captain America, which is maybe because his last movie was basically an AVENGERS entry that he was the star of. Also on the side is Rogers’ buddy Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), along with Paul Bettany as Vision, and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff /Scarlet Witch, who figure in because Vision has one of the Infinity Stones embedded in his head, but, as committed as Bettany and Vision are in their parts, the characters have never really resonated for me.

What also didn’t do much for me was a lot of strained quasi-Shakespearean exposition between or during action sequences that came off like with the actors over emoting about gods, the cosmos, the universe and everything in order to elevate the proceedings (even Peter Dinklage, in his appearance as Eitri the Dwarf King, lays it on a bit thick). Like everything else in the last 45 minutes or so, this was a bit much.

I preferred the comical elements such as Mark Ruffalo’s exasperating and failing struggle to Hulk out throughout the film, the multitude of one-liners like Quill telling Stark, “Let’s talk about this plan of yours - I think it’s good, except it sucks, so let me do the plan, and that way, it might be really good,” and, no surprise here, the Stan Lee cameo.

So AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is the best and worst of all of the Marvel movie motifs all in one place. It’s overstuffed, overlong, and at times overwrought, but a lot of it is immensely entertaining, and often hilarious. Most fans will love it – or most of it – while non fans will dismiss it as a bunch of nonsensical bombast. You know, like every other Marvel movie.

James Cameron, who has multiple AVATAR sequels in the works, was recently quoted as saying that he hopes “we’ll start getting AVENGER fatigue here pretty soon.” Well, fatigue has set in before in the franchise (see IRON MAN 2, the first two THORs, DR. STRANGE, etc.), and did indeed set in towards the end of this, but its satisfyingly dark cliffhanger of a conclusion made my second (or third?) wind kick in. That helped to get me through the thousands of names of SFX Technicians, and Digital Artists to get to the post credits scene, which is something you’ll want to wait for too.

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James Cameron's Populist Classic TITANIC Now Out On Blu ray

Having not seen it since its release in 1997, I had forgotten how damn long TITANIC is. I mean it’s an hour and forty minutes into James Cameron’s enormous money-making machine of a movie, which releases this week on Blu ray, before the ship even hits that infamous iceberg! 

Until then we have to wade through a set-up in which the historical background competes with the lame Leonardo Dicaprio/Kate Winslet love story, and that can be really tough going. 

Especially when the dialogue heavily appears to pander to teenage girls; take for instance this bit of Gloria Stuart’s (as the elder version of Winslet’s character) narration in the present-day wraparound: “It was a ship of dreams…to everyone else. To me it was a slave-ship, taking me back to America in chains. Outwardly, I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming.”

But the impressive scale of the film, happily obscures much of that ickiness. 

The almost full-scale replication of the ship makes for an astounding set, and there are many sweeping shots that show it off nicely. The history lesson embedded in the narrative also distracts from the sappy cheesiness of the star-crossed lovers scenario, but we all know that that scenario was what made the movie such a huge hit.

The Blu ray transfer looks fantastic, bringing out the shiny cinematography of Russell Carpenter which is undoubtedly his best work - though for a resume that includes SHALLOW HAL, MONSTER IN LAW, and a couple of Katherine Heigl films, that’s not saying much. I did find myself thinking that the lighting during the end scenes was unrealistic for the situation, but that's one of those things you can let slide with the ole 'eh - it's a movie' excuse.

Only a real cynic would deny that the “disaster related peril” (per the PG-13 disclaimer) that dominates the second half of “Titanic” - i.e. the ship sinking - is pretty spectacular stuff. It’s in those bombarding chaotic sequences that the film is able to truly bring together its themes of class divide, and depictions of the best and worst of humanity.

On an 1998 episode of Seinfeld that aired a few months after the release of TITANIC, George Constanza (Jason Alexander) tells Jerry that he just saw the movie and asks: “So that old woman...she’s just a liar, right?”

That nails what’s one of the most unsatisfying and frustrating aspects of the film: Why did that old woman throw the diamond, the “Heart of the Ocean” into the ocean at the end? Felt like a stupid selfish choice after Bill Paxton and his crew flew her to their Titanic-stationed salvage ship, and heard her tell her long detailed story, in hopes of finding that precious artifact, and she secretly discards the diamond when she’s finished. WTF?

Paxton tells the old lady’s granddaughter (Suzy Amis, who probably has 3-4 lines tops) that after three years of thinking of nothing but Titanic, he never really “got” it before. Well, that’s good because he’s sure not getting that diamond.

This new spiffy Blu ray of TITANIC, which follows the film’s 3D theatrical re-release, contains two and a half hours of new special features, in addition to the four hours that were previously available on DVD, so if you can’t get enough of TITANIC you are in for a treat. The bonus material includes 30 deleted scenes, 60 featurettes, and something called “Titanic: The Final Word With James Cameron,” that I bet isn’t his final word.

Interestingly, this week also brings the release of Bob Dylan’s 35th studio album, “Tempest,” which just happens to have an almost 14-minute track about the 1912 Titanic sinking. Dylan references the movie, name-drops DiCaprio, and describes the disaster in time to the Celtic country flavoring of his backing band.

Obviously, one hundred years later, folks are still making a fuss about the Titanic tragedy. Cameron uber successfully made the event into an event movie, that brought about years of backlash, but must be regarded as a populist classic. 

I'm sure Film buffs will still scoff at it, even when appreciating the excellent visuals of this exquisite new Blu ray edition, but I bet even they will admit that it’s much more preferable to our current TWILIGHT times, at least in the realm of teen romance epic wannabes.

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AVATAR: The Film Babble Blog Review

AVATAR (Dir. James Cameron, 2009)



When my brother and I were kids we would often put down the lackluster effects of many of the sci-fi films released in the wake of STAR WARS saying they looked "fakey."

Well, there's almost nothing fakey looking in AVATAR, James Cameron's long-in-the-making special effects epic in which every cent of its $250 million + budget sparkles on screen. Nearly every frame is a flawless spectacle of jaw-dropping jolts that makes last summer's STAR TREK reboot already look dated.

AVATAR is set in 2051 on a the distant moon Pandora which is inhabited by large blue humanoid life forms named the Na'vi. Human colonization of Pandora is underway with scientific studies clashing with military might over the Na'vi because they just happen to have a valuable commodity, a mineral called "Unobtainium", which is vital to the survival of Earth, of which the protagonist says "there's no green there, they killed their mother."

That protagonist is paraplegic marine (Sam Worthington) who is recruited to attempt to connect to the natives through "Avatars" - genetically engineered hybrid bodies that allow humans to breathe and co-exist in the Na'vi environment. 

Worthington loves being reborn as a CGI creation that can run, jump, and engage in fighting off the crazy alien creatures of the lush but creepy forest. Telling the Na'vi leader that he is a warrior from the "Jarhead" clan, Worthington is allowed in to their culture based on the spiritual energy of the woods around them. He falls in love with the tribe chieftain's daughter (Zoë Saldana) as he learns their ways and comes to believe that he should join them in fighting the humans who are coming to destroy their sacred Hometree for the "Unobtainium" underneath. 

"Just relax and let your mind go blank" says Sigourney Weaver as a sneering scientist also Avataring it up. Though she adds: "That shouldn't be too hard for you" to Worthington, that's good advice for the audience. 

If it isn't hard to turn one's brain off, an exhilarating visual experience can definitely be had, but if that switch remains in the "on" position, stiff dialogue, simplistic politics (army bad, nature good) and a predictable formula thread may get in the way of total transcendence. 

As a hard assed army Colonel looking to annihilate the Na'vi, Steven Lang comes off as such a standard issue war monger that I almost expected him to blast "Ride Of The Valkries" when flying in to attack on the speaker system of his highly robotized helicopter. 

Also during the ginormous concluding battle sequence I got lost in the explosions and so tired out from the bloated running time (161 minutes) that I was looking for dead Ewoks in the brush. In the end though, critical jabs at the film and Cameron's expense will do little to undermine the overwhelming technical achievement he's created.

AVATAR's amazing aesthetics make it one of the tastiest pieces of cinematic eye candy ever. So much so, that I could even let the sucky song ("I See You" by Leona Lewis) that plays over the end credits slide. 

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