The movie is BEAUTIFUL, and if you're looking for an action movie I definitely recommend it. However, if you're an actual fan of Avatar 1, you will be disappointed.
Overused plot twists :
- bad guy that comes back to life (terminator like),
- a boy raised by the Na'vi that is actually the son of the bad guy (jungle book / star wars like)
Remakes of scenes from the first movie :
- Jake riding sea horses for the first time,
- his son becoming friend with the most dangerous Tulkun (VS Jake and the big Leonopteryx making him Toruk Makto);
- Colonel being overconfident while getting his Banshee (just like Jake);
- Earthers burning the houses of Metkayina (VS when they burnt the Mother Tree);
- the wife of the chief (Ronal) losing her Tulkun and accusing Jake for bringing the Earthers (VS Neytiri losing her ikran and saying she never wants to see Jake again);
- exact same sentences ("The people say that the energy is just borrowed and you have to give it back");
- Jake's son behind chased by a very agressive fish in an unfamiliar environment (VS Jake chased by the Thanator in the forest;)
- the obvious end with a close up shot on Jake's eyes... (was thrilling once but come on...)
The apparition of useless characters :
- Spider makes no sense. He hated his dad, then decided to save him and then joined back Jake and the others???? so obviously the bad guy will come back;
- the Earthers who stayed from the first movie (they just appear 10 seconds to help Jake's daughter),
- the female colonel who brings nothing to the plot,
- Neytiri's mother who appears for 5 seconds maybe...
The lack of character development : they pretty much have 1 personality trait at the start and don't really grow from there, which is very different from the first movie -
- the colonel still hates the Na'Vis even after learning their language and getting his flying pet (his personality is basically "I hate Jake" throughout the entire movie),
- Neytiri hates Spider from the beginning,
- Jake is insufferable with his sons until the very very end where he softens up a bit...
The lack of plot coherence :
- Where the hell did the Metkayina go once the fight actually started?? (because their chief was supposed to get his daughter back);
- Why would the Earthers risk to lose the amrita (product from the tulkuns) that is funding all the actions on Pandora just to satisfy the seek for revenge of a soldier??
Lastly, and this is what frustrates me the most : the many stories started that do not have an end -
- Why is Kiri able to control Eywa? Why is Ronal not saying anything when she's supposed to be that spiritual??
- How is humanity actually planning to move to Pandora?...
Overall, I would recommend the movie if you decently liked the 1st one and want to stay in the same universe. But if you are looking for an actual sequel with a great plot and story / character development, be prepared to be disappointed.
I've smiled about 3-4 times. Not laughed at all although I usually do on comedies. Not very funny, overrated IMHO.
This was a tough one--a little bit more 'story telling' and I think this may have been great, but to much was left out for their actually to be a movie with any reason--cool special effects is just not good enough for me these days, there actually needs to be a reason for the movie to have been made...
The Earth Mothers restore sanity to the world was a bit tired, the fractured evil triplets were not well developed--Raging Leader, Financial Scum, Super Hunter needed at least two more scenes to really make any sense or have an purpose in the film--to have been menacing. They 'landscapes' lacked diversity--though the Hurricane Alley & Desolate Swamp were great, we could have used more 'changes in scenery' at some level particularly the crushing urban stuff from the first film.
Hope is dangerous, Who Killed the Earth, Haunted by Nightmares of the Past, Drifter/Savior were all simple movie tropes that could have been developed SIGNIFICANTLY to make a movie that would have paid off a lot more.
Sometimes I'm amazed about how such mediocre movies can be pumped and overhyped for so little...I mean it could have almost been a decent action movie if it was a little bit shorter, and had at least one tiny bit of developing in the storyline beyond "cool machines driven by freaks chasing in the desert".. All in all beside a great costumes design and props what you are left with, is just some sort a giant shallow videoclip, with a great visual reworking of the post atomic imaginary introduced from the first Mad Max. Oh yes and plus some half naked models.
It's true, after all those useless blurry, hyperkinetic camera movements we got overdosed in the last decades, it's refreshing to see some more traditional shooting with a proper image composition...on the other hand Fury Road to (badly) counterbalance one good thing, need to add something really wrong, hence I have the feeling it will be remembered for one of the worst night photography seen since who knows when maybe the 70s...I mean blue filtering for the night sequences?! c'mon is that a joke?!...in the age of the uber ISO settings digital camera brought even to consumer market? Is really depressing to see so blatantly fake night scenes in a big budget movie...and for no imaginable reason.
I was about to let it go half the way, honestly I made it to the end just out of curiosity...not for the movie itself which became boring pretty soon, but because I was desperately looking for that special something that should have made this movie worth at least some of the praise I had read from audience and critics alike. Needless to say, there was nothing until the end...just you know, the desert...
I enjoyed "Joey" very and therefore have to disagree with a lot of people who compare it to "Friends" and were disappointed. I think Joey is a very funny sitcom and you should give it a try if you like sitcoms along the line of Friends.
