I’ll admit, I wasn’t holding my breath for a sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar. I saw it once in the theaters back in 2009, thought it was visually stunning but lacking in plot and I’ve never watched it since. I honestly don’t know anyone who’s a huge fan of it, and I never see t-shirts for it or even many collectibles. There just doesn’t seem to be a popularity market for Avatar the way you see for other sci-fi/fantasy properties, even other Cameron projects like Aliens or Terminator.The only person that seems to be a fan of Avatar is Cameron himself, so much that he has a pentalogy planned for this universe. That’s fine. He’s paid his dues, coming up through the ranks at the Roger Corman factory to stand as one of our premier genre directors, innovating filmmaking technology so it can keep up with his imagination. He has the Oscar and the resources. So, yeah, he can do what he pleases, which means we get the first of those Avatar sequels, The Way of Water.Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has been living on Pandora as a Na’vi since the events of the first film transferred him permanently into his avatar body. He and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have produced three children of their own, as well as adopted two others. One of those is Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), a Na’vi daughter that came from the avatar of Dr. Grace Augustine (Weaver’s character from the first film). No one knows who Kiri’s father is, and she has a strange connection to the planet. The other child is Spider (Jack Champion), a human born on Pandora and the son of Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Jake’s former CO and enemy.Quaritch and his team have been resurrected as Na’vi avatars and sent back to the planet to help resume colonization. Quaritch has his own very specific mission: Revenge on Jake Sully. To save the Omaticaya, their forest-swelling clan, Jake and his family flee, taking refuge with the Metkayina, the ocean-dwelling clan, learning their ways.Exactly like its predecessor, The Way of Water is visually stunning but falls short on plot. To quote the friend I saw it with, “For a movie all about the ocean, this story is rather shallow.” To its credit, though, there’s more plot here than in the original. Not much, but some. One of the big criticisms of the original’s story was that it was basically Disney’s Pocahontas in space. Well, this time around he doesn’t steal from the Mouse House…he steals from himself.Part of the climactic battle has two people fist fighting on a sinking boat—gee, where have we seen that before? The Spider character—his face dirtied (but with war paint) and long blond hair (but in dreads)—is basically Newt from Aliens. Yet, my personal favorite is the creatures the Metkayina warriors ride: A fish that can come out of the water and fly, which is straight from his first feature film Piranha II: The Spawning.Also, not to be one of those people, but The Way of Water is way too long. I don’t mind a nice long film, but some movies don’t need to overstay. Tell your story, take enough time to do so, but don’t hang about and attempt to keep trying to dazzle us. After the first few minutes in a new environ, we’re acclimated and it becomes the norm rather than the wow.Everything’s not all bad. It truly is a stunning piece of cinematic effects achievement. There’s a scene toward the beginning where the environment and characters looked a touch janky, almost no better than an average video game cutscene. I was worried, but the rest of the film is gorgeous, once again feeling like the immersive environ we had in the original.I also got caught up with the characters, really caring about their fates. Even though they were traipsing through your average family-moves-kids-have-a-hard-time-fitting-in tale, you gain a connection that pulls you into the feelings.Basically, like the original, this is worth a viewing or two. Still, not Cameron’s best, nor will it stand the test of time the way his pre-Titanic work does.