James Cameron’s long-awaited Avatar follow-up is a letdown in the same way that many multimillion dollar movie sequels years in the making often are because it’s hard for them to live up to the hype building in people’s minds. Between its discomfitingly high frame rate and middling story, Avatar: The Way of Water probably won’t blow your wig back the way the first film was able to.
But it’s very fair to say that The Way of Water is a visually-stunning testament to all of James Cameron’s aesthetic sensibilities and skills as a visual storyteller. It’d just be nice if the whole thing worked as an interesting narrative, and not like an overlong tech demo. Critics are split on whether the movie’s any good, but You can find out for yourself now, as Avatar: The Way of Water just hit theaters today.
