Cast your mind back to 2009… British author Terry Pratchett received a knighthood, America had their first African-American President and Glee burst onto our TV screens in a blur of problematic storylines and surprisingly catchy covers and in the world of cinema, James Cameron released what would become the top grossing film of all time – Avatar.

Fast forward to 2022, the world may be a very different place but Avatar remains at the top of the proverbial money tree despite a valiant, and briefly successful, attempt by Avengers: Endgame to knock it off its perch. And after over a decade of waiting and empty promises, Cameron finally delivers his sequel but can The Way of Water live up to the expectations and justify the delay, or will it be a sad reminder of a world long gone?

Avatar: The Way of Water begins several years after the events of the first film and we are given a ‘highlight reel’ in montage form to bring us up to speed. The cliff notes version is that all ‘sky people’, with the exception of a handful of scientists who fought with the Na’vi have returned to Earth and Jake has been getting busy with his partner Neytiri, as the Sully’s have grown to a family of six (and a half).

As well as having three biological children of their own – sons Neteyam and Lo’ak, and a daughter named Tuk – they also adopted Kiri, the Na’vi offspring of Grace’s (Sigourney Weaver) avatar although how this pregnancy came to be remains a mystery throughout the film. Lastly we have Spider, the human child of original protagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch unceremoniously left behind when the ‘sky people’ left, now living with the human scientists but spending most of his time with the Sully children like an adopted stray.

This familial bliss is shattered when the ‘sky people’ return, not for Pandora’s resources this time but for Pandora itself. As is often the case in science-fiction, the humans have f**ked over Earth so much that it is no longer habitable and they need to colonise a new home, but to do that they need to “subdue” the natives first which introduces a familiar face as the film’s protagonist, Colonel Miles Quaritch in Na’vi form. Prior to his death in the first film – not a spoiler, you’ve had thirteen years to watch Avatar – the military began building Quaritch an avatar body, complete with uploaded memories, and now he returns with a squad of fellow previously deceased soldiers and a vendetta to settle.

Now a family man, Jake chooses flight instead of fight, relocating his family to the Metkayina tribe, who have the same level of reverence for water that the Na’vi have for the forest. All of which leads us into the main bulk of the story which, if we’re being honest, is all too familiar. Much like the Force Awakens echoed A New Hope, The Way of Water is pretty much an underwater version of Avatar with an emphasis on family that Vin Diesel would be proud of.

Given he had over a decade to write the story, this feels a little lazy from Cameron especially considering there were intriguing elements within the film that had they been explored, could’ve taken it down an interesting route. Personally, I think exploring the questions around Kiri’s conception and paternity coupled with her spiritual link to Ewya – extreme even by Na’vi standards – would have made a compelling concept to unravel. Perhaps I am being a little impatient and Cameron has this all figured out in his plans for the next installments but, even so, that doesn’t take away from the fact that The Way of Water is more style over substance. That being said, that echoes my views of the first film so at least he is consistent.

Performance-wise, returning cast members gave much of the same and the new additions slotted in nicely, especially the younger more inexperienced cast, but even with the likes of Zoe Saldana, Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver in the mix there wasn’t a huge amount to write home about.

And speaking of Weaver, I really don’t understand the decision for her to play the role of her fourteen year old daughter. Does James Cameron not have enough faith in his audience to remember that she is not Neytiri’s child or is it to negate the need for less lazy story-telling? As you can probably tell, it became something of a bug-bear of mine largely due to the fact that trying to reconcile Sigourney Weaver’s distinct voice with the face of a child took me out of film completely at times.

It’s not all bad though, the film was aesthetically stunning. Cameron obviously has a clear vision with regards to the world he wants to create and visually he does a fantastic job of bringing his audience into his imagination but at over 3hrs runtime you eventually become a little numb to the world that Cameron is trying to portray. Sometimes less is more.