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After over a decade, “Avatar” returns, once again pushing visual effects to a new level. But, despite the breathtaking imagery, the overly-long plot doesn’t break much new ground and in fact repeats quite a few themes from the first film. As expected, the movie is beautiful to look at. The images are stunning and flawlessly rendered. There seems to be no point where the quality dips. (It helps that just about everything is made-up, so there’s some leeway because it’s all stuff that doesn’t really exist.) However, the visuals are almost too crisp and highly-rendered to the point that it often feels like watching the greatest video game cutscene ever. Because we barely get too see any real humans on screen to compare to the animated characters, it makes it hard to tell if its the CG that’s off or just a result of the digital cameras and 3D effect. While Jake and Neytiri return from the first film, their relationship falls a bit flat this time, after being the driving force of the previous chapter. The focus falls this time on their children. Unfortunately, despite the long running time, their early years are rushed to the point that it’s hard to tell which kid is which. Eventually, their personalities do eventually become more evident and their stories become more compelling. The overall plot rehashes some of the broad strokes from the first “Avatar,” with characters becoming outsiders trying to fit in to a strange society while finding themselves at odds with the invading bad guys (including some brought back from the original film.) Even the action sequences are similar, but the air battles are replaced with sea battles. (Which gives James Cameron a chance to throw in some moments reminiscent of “Titanic.”) The conclusion feels somewhat anticlimactic, probably because they need to set up anywhere between one and three more sequels and needed a few loose ends.
*** out of *****