Brief Story Line
After the events of Avatar: The Way of Water, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington - Lift, The Titan etc) and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana - Elio, Vampires vs. the Bronx etc) with their children Lo'ak (Britain Dalton - Dark Harvest etc), Tuk (Trinity Bliss - The Life of Chuck etc), adoptive daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver - Marvel's The Defenders mini series, The Gorge etc) and Spider (Jack Champion - Retribution etc) were still mourning the death of Netayam. While the whole family were going over to drop Spider to another location with the Wind Traders, they encountered another Na'vi clan called Mangkwan led by the vicious Varang (Oona Chaplin - Treason mini series, Anchor and Hope etc) who were trying to rob them. Things gotten complicated when Colonel Quaritch (Stephen lang - Don't Breathe 2, Sisu: Road to Revenge etc) who was hell bent on capturing Jake Sully somehow gotten info on his whereabouts.
Meanwhile General Ardmore (Edie Falco - The Sopranos TV series, The Mother etc) and Captain Scoresby (Brendan Cowell - Plum TV series etc) were planning to capture all the whales in Pandora. Together with the Metkayina clan's leaders Tonowari (Cliff Curtis - Meg 2: The Trench, Reminiscence etc) and his wife Ronal (Kate Winslet - Steve Jobs, Sense and Sensibility etc), Jake Sully and family had to work on fending off the Sky People's agression while fighting Quaritch and Varang as well.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Once again James Cameron did it. He managed to maintain the visually stunning feat like in the previous film and kept us entertained with the story and action while being in awe of the wonderful spectacle of the world in Pandora. The special effects were greatly done and I could understand why the movie had a staggering budget of around USD 400 million before marketing fee. From information I read, it need to have a huge box office performance in the range of USD 1-1.5 billion just to start making profit. As the film was just released this week, we would only know whether it's going to achieve it in the next few months.
The movie itself still focused on the fight between Sky people and Na'vi people, though there was the appearance of new clan of Mangkwan who were completely different from the peaceful Metkayina. Got to hand it to Cameron for his creativity and ability to create such a world. Obviously there is no need to talk about his genius as his portfolio of creating multiple highest grossing films was evident (shockingly he is currently the second of the list below Stephen Spielberg despite only directing 10 movies so far as compared to more than 30 by Spielberg).
However, critics were not too impressed with this movie. Most having relatively similar opinion that the plot was getting a bit repetitive and there did not seem to be something new to the story. Even though I kind of agreed with their assessments, I did not find it to be a downgrade of the previous film cause I was still really entertained as did my wife. If I had to be critical, the only thing that I felt a bit different compared to the amazing second movie was the lack of emotional moment. Oh before I forgot, I was kind of surprised that there were two very dark moments in here with one even warrant a brief message after the movie finished. The action sequence was still fantastic and the climax was still awesome. Having duration of more than 3 hours did not feel that long for us (probably because we were already accustomed binge watching multiple episodes of a series). One thing that both of us were quite surprised was the Soap Opera effect *) when we saw this in the cinema, which made us felt like watching TV. Maybe it would be better to see it in 3D or it need to adjust the frame rate?
The cast were pretty decent in their roles, though nothing spectacular to be expected as it's not the main feature of this movie. In addition to those names above, there were plenty of cast who reprised their roles such as Giovanni Ribisi (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow etc) as Parker Selfridge, Bailey Bass (Interview with the Vampire TV series etc) as Tsireya daughter of Tonowari & Ronal, Jemaine Clement (A Minecraft Movie etc) as marine biologist Dr. Ian Garvin, Joel David Moore (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story etc) as Dr. Norm Spellman, David Thewlis (Enola Holmes 2 etc) as Peylak, leader of Wind Traders and few others. From what I read, Avatar 4 was already filming which would be great since there was still several loose ends that have not been concluded and it would be a shame if they are not properly resolved.
In the end, regardless of critics opinion, this movie is still a very enjoyable one. We could still be entertained by the beautiful Pandora world and its various inhabitants, the interesting story, wonderful special effects and its breath taking actions. My wife and I were satisfied seeing this in a large cinema with great Dolby Atmos sound system. So if you love watching the beauty of Avatar films, then you could still be in awe with this one. Just prepare yourself cause it takes 3 hours and 17 minutes to finish watching it (there was no mid or post end credit scene here but there was a quite lovely song during the closing credits).
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
*) The soap opera effect is a complaint against motion pictures with a high frame rate and/or shot on video. Images are denounced as "too realistic" or "too smooth" and therefore undesirable, especially for theatrical movies.
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