Just loved the movie. It is long, and it feels long but there's nothing to be cut. It's just a story that needs to take some time, otherwise it wouldn't be as effective. It is a tragedy and I feel making it shorter would ocncentrate all the tragic events too much or just gloss over them. I also think that there is just something about this setting that I love, this mix of 'wild west' freedom meets lawful civilization.
What I think I loved the most is how punchy all the emotional scenes are, and Lily Gladstone really delivered andelevated those tragedies. I also loved how the tone is set from the beginning. We see all these white people just swarming for the money and when we meet King, you can tell he is not a very good man and is doing something exploitative, but you just cant tell yet.
I havent read the book, but from what I understand the story is flipped to make it less about FBI investigation, and more about the actual cases and situation which I think works for this movie very well. I don't think the feeling would be the same if it was a crime thriller or a whodunnit. This way we get to see how awful everything and everyone was and instead of wondering about the mystery. Also I think the Ernest's character is wonderfully done where you cannot tell if he is just really stupid or just super greedy (though he does tell us that he is not dumb and he does really love money, so I guess that's it). The whole thing about no one spelling out the plan, but everyone understanding exactly what needs to be done is also brilliant. And it was interesting how in a couple of instances where it seemed Ernest had a novel idea of doing something by himself, it again turned out that it was King's idea all along (and though a dumb game of telephone the plans go catastrophically wrong).
The ending was also reallly interesting. One of those instances where you can't immediatelly put your finger on what's wrong with it - but your brain knows. I think it only works in current time, where we can see from the lens of current situations that it is kinda wrong that they are making a radio play with people doing the accents, and butchering native names, and done as a show for laughs and pastime. The cameo just puts it in perspective of the movie and makes it meta, which i didn't really appreciate or understand right away.
While it is a long movie it didn't feel like one. Also didn't feel like a good movie or a good sequel. Most of the setup from the first movie is thrown away in the first scenes. Plot is simple but okay (possibly one of the good things of this movie is that the plot wasn't overly complicated). What drags this movie down is the way the plot advances and dialogue that feels like it could be written by anybody (I could guess what characters where going to say or do for pretty much every scene).
What was most annoying to me was the fact that whole messager of Avatar movies is connection to nature and life, but some of the best scenes in this movie are of death and murder - Neytiri shooting her bow, shootouts, hunts... It felt disgusting at one point, especially during the hunt for tulkuns. Also none of the characters seem to feel any remorse after those events, except maybe Spider.
Characters do not grow or change - Jake Sully still uses a gun, soldiers are 1 dimensional as possible, kids have 1 trait...
Nitpick - Jake Sully didnt seem to know what a moon pool was...
Overall not a really good movie, pretty and nicely paced, but that's about it. It is more frustrating than fun. Titanic scene at the end was good :)
