Allen Miles

WARNING : Contains some unspecific spoilers: For the record I was a huge fan of the first Avatar movie. I loved the story line, the characters, the plot development, the love story, the cinematography, everything. I have been looking forward to this 2nd installment for years. Unfortunately, Avatar: The Way of Water is a total let down in every category. There is no new story line. Avatar: The Way of Water is quite literally a rinse/repeat version of the 1st movie. Characters are actually repeated, the environment and storyline are literal carbon copies from the 1st film, just switched out for new visuals and nearly identical character roles. The barely existent plot is rushed and recycled, which essentially devolved the movie into an overly intense action movie, which was not what I had intented to see. Moreover many intense scenes were unnecessary and did not add to the overarching plot of the movie in any way. Even the cinematography and CGI was underwhelming. At times the CGI looks downright choppy and cartoony compared to the 1st film. However after all of this the worst part for me is the disturbing level of violence in the movie. Not only are the battle scenes exponentially more explicit and violent in comparison to the 1st movie, the added level of violence does not in fact add any value to the movie. There are numerous violent acts against children in the movie, to a disturbing level. The lives of the children are threatened at every turn whether with a knife to the throat or a gun to the head. The children are exposed to and take place in violence to an unnecessary amount. Children are used, abused, attacked and even tortured in different parts of the movie, all without redemption or even a modest level of value for life. This movie is not for children of any age, especially children that have experienced any level of trauma in their life, physical, mental or emotional. Especially trauma involving parents or caregivers, as a disregard for the life and care of youth is throughout the movie. I do not recommend this movie to anyone, and will not be seeing future installments in the series.