The release of the first “Avatar” movie was a large success. It has turned into a widely celebrated franchise and now has its own land located in Animal Kingdom. There is no doubt that there was excitement surrounding the announcement of “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The film was released on Dec. 16 and was directed by James Cameron with a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though it was a box office hit, I have other opinions on its true quality.

The plot of the movie is simple. The story revolves around the family of former Resource Development Administration (RDA) member, Jake Sully, trying to protect both the jungle and ocean Na’vi found on Pandora. The family also tries to simultaneously learn the culture and practices of the ocean Na’vi. Although we do meet new characters and creatures throughout the film, this does not change the fact that the plot of the movie is identical to that of the original “Avatar” film. 

The matching plotlines make the three hour movie drawn out and seem never ending. The ending of the movie hardly impacts the storyline. The plot creates a circle, it ends just how it began. This was mainly because of the revival of the villain Colonel Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang, who does not hold a major role in the plot. They also brought back Sigourney Weaver to play her original character’s daughter, Kiri Sulley. I thought that this was a bit confusing, mostly because this character is supposed to be 14 but has the voice of an adult. And while this can add to the maturity of a character, it makes no sense considering they had limited knowledge of the world around them, it makes the move unnecessary.

In addition to the similar plots and unnecessary characters, the performances of the actors were not up to par. This movie is redundant, and through the uninspired acting, it was obvious that the actors felt that way too. The characters Tuktirey, Kiri and Spider all had odd performances that felt out of place. They all had more potential, they seemed to lack a purpose throughout the film. They only show up throughout the movie to add negligible information for the audience.

There is said to be a third and fourth installment of this franchise in the works, something I am definitely not going to get my hopes up about considering the way this movie turned out. The original movie was everything that the sequel lacked, and the directors should have just left it at that. With 13 years between the two films, I was extremely disappointed with the execution of the second installment in this franchise.