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Thirteen years ago I found myself seemingly at odds with the world. In fact no, it is worse than that; I found myself at odds with my world. I love movies but here I was unable to comprehend why so many other cinema goers, people I obviously have a great affinity with, loved this particular movie.

I thought the first Avatar was terrible but almost everyone I met extolled the complete opposite. I was regularly greeted with incredulity when I gave my opinion but the feeling was mutual because I could not see why everyone was so excited about a movie with such a poor script, a weak cliched story and fairly mediocre performances. Could it really be that they were just that impressed by the pretty special effects because that is really all that it had. Still, there I was watching the box office numbers exponentially rise to the tune of two and three quarter billion dollars, making it the highest grossing film of all time. The total take is close to three billion now, after they churlishly put it back in cinemas because Avengers: Endgame initially made more than they did.

Yep, most people seemed to disagree with me on this one.

This time it is different though.

It’s not that director James Cameron’s belated sequel is failing to make money, it’s just had a $434 million opening weekend which already makes it the tenth highest grossing film of the year and it’s clearly not going to stop there. Sadly it isn’t that my feelings on the film are that different to last time either. I didn’t hate this one but I don’t think I can go as far as to say that I liked it. I think it is better than the original but that might just be because my expectations were so low this time. No, the change here is that now I don’t seem to be the only one that thinks along these lines.

To be fair there were a few other dissenting voices back in 2009 but I didn’t meet many and this time the sides are apparently much more clearly defined. To go to my go tos; Empire Magazine gave it five stars but Peter Bradshaw and Mark Kermode both trashed it. Clarissa Loughrey in the Independent, who always speaks sense, said the visual effects were incredible but the story was weak. Looking more locally, it seems from the post screening foyer chatter when I saw it that there were clearly those who absolutely loved it but the two friends I was with both thought it was very poor. It was actually me that started defending it until I found I really couldn’t. My thirteen year old daughter, who saw it two days before I did, said it was fine but just kept moaning about the length.

So, buoyed now by a few allies I prepare once again to be putting forward some ideas that many many others will no doubt disagree with. There are certainly lots of audience members online that were thrilled with this and are quickly dismissing any alternate views.

There is no question that the film is indulgent; my youngest is not wrong about the problem with the running time. This movie is three hours and twelve minutes long which, if I’m being charitable is at least an hour too much but might actually be two hours and forty five more than was needed. Loughrey is right about the staggering CGI but a brief showcase of what they can now do would have been sufficient. Effects always need to exist to service the story too and this isn’t so much supporting the narrative as replacing it? Also, if I’m honest I am always more impressed by special effects when they show me something that only cinema can deliver. Yes the underwater creatures are displaying certain behaviours that David Attenborough’s crew would never be able to catch on camera when they head out into the oceans, but I am still more impressed by a nature documentary that shows me real marine animals precisely because it is real. That has a genuine wow factor whereas this is just a sophisticated cartoon. It is impressive for sure but please Mr. Cameron go back to robots.

Also, in relation to how long this is – the pacing is way off. There is a huge exposition dump in the first six minutes which could certainly have been afforded more time and then later we get lots of lengthy sequences of those blue beanpole creatures sitting on weirdly beaked whales or riding tricked out sea horses that we really don’t advance the limited story.

Let’s pause on the Na’vi for a minute; the motion capture inhabitants of the moon Pandora. (This is still a clumsily literal name for a beautiful land with the power to destroy but at least they are not searching for the rare mineral unobtainium anymore.) I’m not worried about their azure hue, I’ll let others make comparisons to Smurfs, Kree, The Blue Man Group, Aladdin’s Genie, Megamind, Violet Beauregarde, Gonzo or Ugly Sonic as they choose. I just have to say that this film makes me thankful again for Star Trek’s commitment to always putting clothes on their aliens. After a hundred and ninety minutes of this I was certainly done with seeing cobalt bums and ultramarine under boob.

As with before though, my biggest issue is with the plotting and the script. The story is not as dumb here as it was in Avatar but probably only because it is much less ambitious. Having gone native in the first film, one time human now full time Na’vi Jake Sully has somehow been accepted by the Earthling hating Pandorians and has become their leader, which makes little sense. Then when the bad people return, including among their number a lazily but conveniently reincarnated version of the evil Colonel Quaritch from before, Jake and his Na’vi family run away to save the others in their tribe from getting could up the conflict. Where do they hide? In amongst a new tribe, the Ocean dwelling Metkayina, that they clearly have no qualms about drawing in to the inevitable fight. This is actually discussed on a couple of occasions but to no resolution. When the humans eventually do come and innocents get hurt the Metkayina Queen shouts at Jake to tell him it is all his fault which it absolutely is, but once again it is forgotten in an instant because dealing is apparently unnecessary. Clearly living in the water has given these Na’vi the memories of a goldfish; they are angry one minute then suddenly fine with it all the next.

There are other points but pretty much the whole story, such as it is, is at best utterly contrived and as worst just plain silly. When one of the whales actually talks back to Jake’s middle son I might actually have been heard to audibly utter ‘wait, what, I’m sorry, what?’ in the theatre. This wasn’t the only time it turns out that this globe’s aquatic life has astonishing/stupid capabilities either.

For me though, the hero’s wilful endangerment of others and the various magic fish were not the worst of it. Much of the plot actually centres around the teenage kids and blue or not this is the most one note depiction of adolescence since Grease 2. It’s as though Harry Enfield has made The Breakfast Club, in a swimming pool. I don’t know what happened, Cameron used to be able to direct teens. Edward Furlong was convincing in his angst in Terminator 2 and Eliza Dushku was alright in True Lies but these kids are about as accurate a representation of young adults as Bart Simpson. It’s all, ‘my parents don’t understand’, ‘I won’t do what I’m told’, and ‘oh no, they love my siblings more than me’ and at one point the rival boys lead one of the Sully kids into a dodgy situation to humiliate him but they might as well have thrown him into traffic. He is put in such a danger that if he had died it wouldn’t have been a prank gone wrong it would have been actual murder. Like everything in the film it is all very underwritten to the point of being nonsensical.

The publicity for this movie is saying it has been thirteen years in the making but if that is true then it is embarrassing. The visuals are amazing and it does push digital boundaries but surely they could have found some time in that decade or so to work on the story and characterisation too. Apparently not.

Still, here we are back in the world of Avatar. I suspect it is all in the water for a while now because James Cameron likes playing in the sea. If it is going to get the promised part 3, 4 and 5 though this one needs to do big business. To get anything close to $2 billion it is going to need people to go back for repeat viewings. Personally I can’t imagine why anyone would want to watch this again, but they will and I’m sure I’ll be discussing it with many of its fans for some time to come.

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The Ripley Factor:

This is a director with a reputation for giving us good female characters, including of course Ripley herself. Sigourney Weaver returns in this film despite also having died in the last one. Her inclusion is handled better than Stephen Lang’s Quaritch though. (They try to build suspense around his potential death in this but they made such a thing pointless in the way they brought him back.) Weaver’s new character is strong and will evidently play a key role in any sequels.

Elsewhere this aspect is not so great. Kate Winslet’s Ronal, the aforementioned wife of the water chief, and Zoe Saldana’s returning Neytiri are both fierce and capable warriors but they are prone to uncontrollable emotion and have to be calmed down by their husbands. It is as though Cameron has confused ferocity with anger and these are simply not the same thing. Neytiri has a really interesting moment in the closing scenes but it remains unexplored and in dire need of being properly addressed, like almost everything else in this deeply, deeply mediocre film