Review: 'Avatar: The Way of Water' summons another stunning, virtual-reality world

Once more, James Cameron has characters abandoning a ship that's fallen over sideways and is about to sink in "Avatar: The Way of Water."

The "Titanic" Oscar winner includes a knowing nod to that movie in "Water's" climactic sequence, in which heroes and villains are stuck in a sinking vessel, hoping not to drown. Unlike the first "Avatar," primarily set in a forest on a moon called Pandora, the new one mostly takes place in a watery corner of Pandora. That's where the Sullys resettle after dad Jake's (Sam Worthington voiced and did the motion capture) vicious enemy Quaritch (Stephen Lang) chases them from their home.

Both Jake and Quaritch are not quite themselves anymore — their consciousnesses were implanted in avatars that remake them as Na'vi, the Windex-colored people of Pandora. Jake has married Na'vi Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and they have a bunch of kids who shake out like those on a family sitcom: a do-gooder, a rebel, the adorable youngest, etc. (If you haven't seen "Avatar" since its 2009 release, it may be worth boning up on it because there's no hand-holding in the sequel, which assumes we know this territory.)

One bit of good news about "Water" — and it is mostly good news — is it's not one of those second-movie-in-a-series that feels incomplete. The surprisingly swift, 192-minute film stands on its own, and I suspect you could have a good time watching it even if you haven't seen the first "Avatar."

One reason for the self-sufficiency of "Water" is that there's so little to the characterizations that it doesn't matter if you know who's who. That means our emotional investment in the people, both human and Pandoran, is low. But fortunately, what the script lacks in humanity it makes up for in messaging.

With Quaritch having taken on the appearance of Pandora's people and with the Sully family relocating to a water-based community whose residents resemble them but with skin a greener shade of blue, it can be difficult to tell the good guys from the bad. That's deliberate. Cameron's movie experiments intriguingly with the issue of identification, since all of the people who look like us are horrible (including Edie Falco as a hawkish military type and Brendan Cowell as a craven hunter of whale-like creatures).

Cameron wants us to sit with the idea that we are the bad guys, that we are wrecking our planet. The people of Pandora exist in harmony with other living creatures but that's not true of those of us on Earth, whom "Water" calls "sky people." As Jake says, "The sky people don't care about the great balance."

Even more so than in the first "Avatar," the world-building and creature-creating of "Water" is breathtaking, with seamless special effects so reliably great that it's no trouble buying into this alternate civilization. And although I'm not generally a 3-D fan, it may be worth the upcharge to attend a 3-D screening. That's how I saw it, and it's the sharpest, most consistent 3-D I've ever experienced.

Cameron still offers no evidence that he has a sense of humor in "Water," but his film is thoughtful about grief and hopeful about our ability to cooperate on solutions. If the forest people of Pandora can become sea people, as they do in "Water," maybe us sky people can change, too?

'Avatar: The Way of Water'

*** out of 4 stars

Rated: PG-13 for language and violence.

Where: In theaters.

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