The Way Of Water’ Is Reviewing Worse Among Critics, Better Among Fans Than ‘Avatar 1’

It’s a little hard to believe that after so many years of delays that Avatar 2 has finally arrived, though it has dropped the number and is just “Avatar: The Way of Water.” James Cameron’s latest technical masterpiece has gotten solid reviews overall, but we are seeing a somewhat specific disparity open up early here.

Right now, here’s how the reviews stand for Avatar: The Way of Water compared to the original Avatar:

Avatar – 82% critics, 82% audiences

Avatar: The Way of Water – 78% critics, 94% audiences

So, when previously fans and critics agreed almost exactly about the film, critics dropped a tiny bit from last time, while audiences seem to like it even more. Granted, some of that may be early enthusiasm, given that the first people to rush out and see the movie are more likely to like the sequel in the first place, but still, a 94% audience score is deeply impressive, and tops nearly all MCU blockbusters, for instance.

As ever, the praise is mainly focused on the visuals, which are out-of-this-world incredible, similar to the first movie which used 3D tech that really has not been seen in the 13 years since. Now, that tech has advanced even further and once again James Cameron makes the argument for 3D movies in theaters. Though really, only his movie. While 3D became a fad in the wake of Avatar doing huge box office returns with the tech, no one ever did it as good as that movie, until this new one, of course.

Here’s a sampling of a critic who loved it:

“The scenes of Jake and Neytiri’s forest-dwelling family learning to adapt to marine life are full of a kind of joy that it seems Hollywood blockbusters have all but forgotten: that of seeing something unprecedented and wondrous.”

And one who didn’t:

“The bald, button-pushing beats are undermined alternately by Cameron’s unapologetic gun fetishization and overlong “wonder” sequences, turning this into a numbing, three-hour slog instead of an easily achievable two-hour experience.”

Of course, the main question is how well the film will perform at the box office when all is said and done, and if it can come anywhere near the record-breaking haul of the first Avatar, which sat atop the charts for years until Marvel unseated it with The Avengers: Endgame. Since 2009, The Force Awakens and Spider-Man: No Way Home have also passed its domestic haul. Adjusted for inflation it falls much further down the list to #15, but that elevates another Cameron film, 1997’s Titanic, to #5.

You may forget that the original Avatar opened with only $77 million, which was hardly all that eye-popping, but what it had was longevity through word of mouth, resulting in wild occurrences like just a 1.8% drop between its first and second weekend. We’ll see if The Way of Water may follow a similar pattern here, but I would expect a much, much higher opening weekend at baseline, certainly, now that Avatar is a known quantity.

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