AVATAR: ON THE CUTTING EDGE

I surrender. It’s easy to poke holes in James Cameron’s films because of awkward dialogue or glib characterizations or his propensity for staging climaxes to his climaxes. But I was completely taken in by Avatar: The Way of Water and overwhelmed by its fluid, kinetic action scenes, eye-popping production design and propulsive storytelling. I have only a sketchy memory of the original film from 2009 and could have used a recap at the outset of this new saga. At first I had trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys in this sequel, but the answers soon became self-evident. The narrative is an obligatory clothesline on which the filmmaker can hang a series of spectacular vignettes. The key ingredient in this epic, expansive movie—which runs more…