'Avatar: The Way of Water' film review: Stunning CGI fails to distract from epic-scale mediocrity

The long-delayed sci-fi flick 'Avatar: The Way of Water' (opening in theaters Dec. 16) will tests audience's palette for a sequel to a 13-year-old movie ... that doesn't radically advance the story or the characters. But the CGI is pretty (again).

In short: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) try to protect their fellow Navi and their family after the "skypeople" return to re-colonize Pandora. Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Kate Winslet also star.

'The Way of Water' is the follow-up to a movie so old that that first film's contemporaries include the Playstation 3 and the iPhone 3GS. This sequel, weighing in at more than 3 hours long, is somehow longer than the first 'Avatar,' which had to introduce the audience to a wholly original cast of characters, a new planet and a new species of alien. Given that 'The Way of Water' is almost entirely CGI, with only a handful of human characters and physical sets, the sequel is a visual effects stunner. All that said, few movies have accomplished so little with so much.

Just to be clear and upfront - the CGI in this flick is mind-blowing in its crisp photorealism. Water and up-close facial features have notoriously been some of the most difficult things to recreate using CGI - and Wētā FX has absolutely nailed these seemingly impossible tasks. Aside from the occasional human character, practically every pixel of every frame of the film is CGI perfection - with the humans and their tech perfectly blending in with the vibrant and stunning world of Pandora. The revolutionary, motion-smoothed CGI is almost enough to distract from the sequel's derivative and thin actual plot.

This is a spoiler-free review of the 'Avatar' sequel - but honestly there's not a lot to spoil. 'The Way of Water' busies itself by prolonging world-building scenes with some stunning CGI - but instead of exploring the vivid forests of Pandora, the audience is introduced to the vivid ocean biome of Pandora. The human "skypeople" are once again just a horde of greedy humans plundering Pandora with their only character trait being "lust for resources."

Every sequel to any movie ever comes with the implicit existential question: Why does this movie exist? Why does this story need additional chapters? How will the characters evolve? What about the original story needs to be expanded or fleshed out? This is a spoiler-free review - but honestly there's not much to spoil because this sequel feels like a weak retread of the original. If 'Avatar' followed a human learning the ways of the forest Na'vi while fighting extractionist colonists, 'The Way of Water' follows Jake's family learning the ways ... of the ocean Na'vi while fighting extractionist colonists.

In the original film, Jake Scully at least had a conflict of identity - he was a human who fully assimilated to the Na'vi. He took up arms against humans, fighting side-by-side with the species he was ordered to genocide. In the sequel, Jake basically just shows up to be a bad-ass warrior and a hardnosed father - otherwise Jake disappears into the background. 'The Way' hints at an intriguing inner conflict between Neytiri the Na'vi warrior and Neytiri the mother - but this character arch is mostly neglected. The four Scully children are thin characters - ranging from one whose only role seems to be "damsel in distress" (repeatedly) and another is a "good warrior."

If 'Way of Water' was simply a CGI masterpiece with a mid-story and barely interesting characters ... but packed into a two-hour film, the sequel could have dodged a major bullet. Every three-hour movie fights an uphill battle - and every single minute past the two-hour mark must be justified. A three-hour movie is a "every minute of this movie is precious and could not be left on the cutting room floor" statement - but much of 'Way of Water' is tedious worldbuilding and the Scully family learning how to live in the ocean. Packing so much exposition and tedious learning into a film, while neglecting character and story development, is a terrible trade-off 'Way of Water' makes. There are a few genuinely affecting moments in the film - but if they were strung end-to-end, it would be a few great minutes compared to more than 180 minutes of mediocre story.

During a press interview, James Cameron was asked when the best time was to take a restroom break and he famously replied "any time they want" ... which is true because so very little happens for the first two hours and fifteen minutes. But 'Way of Water' is a mid story with mid characters thrown into a stunning CGI cartoon ... in a story where very little happens. The fact that Wētā FX mastered the digital recreation of water particle physics is neat - but it would have been a lot cooler if the story was anywhere as robust or revolutionary as the VFX.

This first, of apparently many, 'Avatar' sequels does not inspire much hope or excitement for the 1,000 planned sequels. The ending is not a cliffhanger by any measure. The characters ... are hardly transformed by the time the credits eventually roll, so it's difficult to gin up any interest in where the characters will go from here. The most charitable hope for future 'Avatar' sequels is ... trying to get revved up to watch the same characters fight the same fight again and again. The most cynical reaction is the gnawing worry that James Cameron knows he can just reheat the leftovers again, run it through the magic CGI machine again, and audiences will just be satisfied with another shiny, if meager, sequel.

Final verdict: 'The Way of Water' is basically an 'Avatar' retread - except it takes place in the ocean. Incredible CGI is not enough to offset a thin story and underdeveloped characters. 'The Way of Water' is a perfectly entertaining VFX showcase if one just turns off the cerebral parts of the brain, and just gets totally sucked into the immersive CGI and pretty great action sequences.

Score: 2/5

'Avatar: The Way of Water' opens in theaters Dec. 16. This sci-fi adventure has a runtime of 192 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and intense action, partial nudity and some strong language.