Film reviews: Avatar: Way of Water, Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Bardo

****

Like the Qatar World Cup, an Avatar sequel was something that nobody much wanted, but now it’s here there’s an obligation to get excited about it.

When Disney bought Twentieth Century Fox they must have baulked at taking on the reported $1 billion wrapped up in James Cameron’s four new instalments of the saga. 3 will arrive this time next year regardless; how far they are into 4&5 is unclear, but their completion depends on how this goes.

Though much derided since, Avatar was a great cinematic event, a genuine wow. The problem is that wow faded quickly; despite millions going to see it on the big screen, almost none of us became Avatards. Apart from its phenomenal box office success, it left little mark.Avatar Way of Water (Image: Disney)

So when after 13 years Sully, Pandora and the big blue Na’vi reappear there’s no excitement. Way of Water however does equal the original as a technological leap forward – in this one Cameron successfully harnesses the potential of Higher Frame Rate - the gimmick that you found so distracting and cheap-looking in The Hobbit and Gemini Man.

But the parts of Avatar 2 that were shot at 48 frames per second, (twice the normal rate) have a remarkable depth and veracity and make what is basically an animation look like live-action.

Like any East End gangster film, the focus of this is the importance of family. Sully (Worthington) and Neytiri (Saldaña) now have kiddies to protect from the planet destroying human armies of the Sky People. The solution is to run away and hide their five fingered blue children with Pandora’s greener tinged sea dwellers. It's a wise move for Cameron to set much of this in the ocean. After Titanic and The Abyss, he's the undisputed master of underwater filming, and after spending time world building and exploring the seas, the second half is one long action sequence.Avatar Way of Water (Image: Disney)

Way of Water is a cinematic spectacle and after some lean years for blockbusters and no competition (it’s the only new release this week), it could be enough to make this expensive gamble pay off. It can't though disguise what a thin creation this is with no strong characters. And it doesn't help that while the first film introduced the performers in human form before moving into their avatars, most of the new performers playing Na'vi are largely indistinguishable. Apparently, Kate Winslet is in this, but I doubt you’ll notice.

The storytelling is rushed and slapdash, with loose ends all over the place. The dialogue is beyond banal, a mix of new-age babble and slang. Perhaps that speaks to the contradiction at the heart of the film. Way of Water is another eco-crusading film about how terrible humanity is, but for all its messaging about making a spiritual connection with nature, it uses warfare to engage the audience.

This is a great, big, cinema-filling epic that's technically staggering and richly entertaining, but ultimately hollow. I wish 68-year-old James Cameron had found something else to devote over a decade and a half of his career to.

Directed by James Cameron. Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, CCH Pounder, Stephen Lang, Jermaine Clement and Edie Falco. In cinemas. Running time: 192 mins.

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Image: Netflix)

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (15)

****

You’re one of the world’s most acclaimed film directors, and won back-to-back Oscars for your last two films (Birdman, The Revenant.) How does Alejandro G. Iñárritu follow that?

Obviously, by sticking it to a gullible streaming service (in this case Netflix; other streaming rubes are available) and getting them to fund your overlong, subtitled, self-indulgent, semi-autobiographical, no-star cast, black comedy riff on 8½ in which you get to realise all those great ideas for stunning visual set pieces that you couldn't find a place for in your other films.

And then, just to go that extra mile into obscurity, you laden it with one of the most audience-repelling titles imaginable.

The film is every bit as long-winded as its title. Silverio (Cacho) is an acclaimed journalist/documentarian based with his family in Los Angeles, who goes back to his native Mexico, prior to accepting a prestigious award.

Events unfurl in a kind of stream of consciousness that moves seamlessly between dream sequences, domestic interactions, and surreal flights of fancy musing on the immigrant experience, the lingering trauma of a baby dying shortly after childbirth, Mexican history, and its relationship with the United States.

There are certainly longueurs and frustrations, but unlike the grinding misery of his previous films, there are touches of lightness, even levity.(There's a knowing sequence where a rival journalist rails at Silverio about how pretentious his latest film is.)

Plus it’s often visually staggering. I can take all the pretentious self-indulgence you can throw at me if it comes with striking formal invention. There are moments here that had me leaning forward in my seat, eager to fully take in what was on screen. Even the boring bits are wonderous. There's an interminable party sequence that seems to serve absolutely no purpose but the grace with which the camera moves through the dancing throng, you don't mind the indulgence.

The cinematography by Iranian Darius Khondji (Delicatessen, Seven) is exceptional. The use of light, particularly in scenes that are shot directly into the sun, is like a colour equivalent of the black and white images shot by fellow Mexican Alfonso Cuaron on Roma.

It’s a film that demands to be seen on the big screen, which after December 16, the date of its enclosure on Netflix, you won’t be able to. You can take Netflix for a ride, but you’ll be cut down to size in the end.

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Starring Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid and Iker Sanchez Solano. Streaming on Netflix from December 16. Running time: 160 mins.

Go to http://www.halfmanhalfcritic.com/ for a review of Arrow Video’s blu-ray release of 70s sci-fi classic Silent Running.