For fans as well as for theater managers in need of an audience, this is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated films of the year.
James Cameron's new
Avatar
tells the sequel to the adventures of Jake Sully and Ney'tiri on Pandora.
The story takes place a decade after the events of the first film.
The former marine has definitively left his human body to reincarnate as a Na'vi.
He and Ney'tiri are now married and have four children: Neteyam, Lo'ak, Tuktirey and Spider.
They lived a peaceful life until humans attacked their planet again.
Forced to leave their home, the little family goes to explore the unknown lands of Pandora... and its seabed.
A breathtaking universe
For the second part of this saga (at least two others are planned), the 68-year-old director saw things big, especially for the aquatic scenes, which occupy a large part of the film.
“From film to film, Cameron pushes the limits of gigantism and technological innovation, constantly renewing the invention of the Lumière brothers like a modern-day Méliès,
marvels Étienne Sorin, journalist at
Le Figaro
.
Avatar
thus brings “performance capture” into another dimension, anticipating in passing the advent of metaverses.”
To achieve this result, James Cameron again employs his beloved "motion capture", a technique which consists of filming the movements of the actors, digitizing them to transform them into Na'vi, these blue extraterrestrials three meters high.
“
Avatar 2
perfects the process through incredible underwater sequences, where the characters rub shoulders with aquatic creatures of breathtaking realism,”
says Jérôme Vermelin on TF1 Info.
For 3h12, the spectator then finds himself transported to a parallel universe
"such as literature since Tolkien or Hollywood science fiction cinema since
Star Wars
like to create",
according to
La Croix
.
Avatar has its own codes, adds Stéphane Dreyfus,
“its own language, its own spirituality, its imaginary bestiary and its exotic and fluorescent flora, which seduces the public in search of escape”
.
“It must be admitted that the experience of cinema promised by James Cameron, the one that it is impossible to find at home on your sofa, is required”
, specifies
La Croix
again .
Le Parisien,
for his part, welcomes a “
hyperimmersive family show
”.
"We thought we had reached a peak with Avatar, we're going up several notches with the Way of Water
", rejoices Renaud Baronian who congratulates James Cameron for "
his scientific genius, his sense of romance and his love of beautiful images".
Read alsoThirteen years after its release, Avatar tops the French box office
A scenario that remains to be reviewed
To these praises on the technical and visual aspects almost unanimous, a reserve, coming from France Culture where one is doubtful in front of the capacity of Cameron to renew the exploit of the first
Avatar,
thirteen years later.
3D?
“It exhausts the gaze,”
complains Lucile Commeaux.
Special effects ?
"Nothing we haven't seen before."
The director
“fails at the game of the big show”,
estimates the columnist.
"The form looks so backward that it seems to hover, just like the narrative."
The screenplay is probably the weakest aspect of the film according to critics.
Avatar 2
“
surfs on archetypes
”, regrets France Info.
"The themes covered are nevertheless rich: diversity, education, father-son conflicts, integration, colonization...", but their treatment leaves something to be desired.
“
Is Cameron more of a director than a playwright
”, asks Jackie Bornet, recognizing, all the same, that
“the 3h10 of this second part pass very quickly”
.
What should be remembered?
A new and “beautiful progressive fable”, like the first episode?
Not really, protests Lucile Commeaux.
Although in the body of a nice Na'vi fighting against corporations that want to exploit his planet, the hero is
"more than ever a western, heterosexual white man, who demands that his children call
him 'sir'
as in the past. army, yells at its sons who are not virile enough, and imposes its power on everyone".
"It's worth the trouble to understand Pandora, learn its uses and its language if it's to reproduce the operation of Texan rednecks yelling at everyone in English,"
she asserts.
Read also“I may pass for a dinosaur”: at 68, James Cameron sets out to conquer the box office
Less carried away,
Le Nouvel Obs
still finds it regrettable
"that a filmmaker of Cameron's caliber ends his career ruminating on the same story rather than inventing new ones".
Will the new directors who will be entrusted with the sequel to the sage manage to do better?
"It will probably take a little more effort in writing the screenplay for what strongly resembles a pacifist western,"
warns
La Croix
.
