Avatar: Way of Water review

That, alone, makes it a difficult sit at a theater. At home, there’s the ability to press pause and resume when the feeling strikes.

Clocking in at three hours and 12 minutes, the sequel to “Avatar,” the 2009 success, takes too long to get its story going. When it does, we realize it’s basically the same story, just with new treasure (some whale goo that stops aging) and another group of blue creatures who also are leery of the “sky people.”

For the uninitiated, those are greedy humans from Earth who think nothing of racing like “Mad Max” across the waters of Pandora just to get their goods. The connection: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has embraced his Na’vi avatar and become one of the Pandorans, hoping to raise his family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) in peace and away from those who complicated his life.

Visits to underwater worlds (with lots of bioluminescence) are great – and intoxicating. Connections to the earlier film exist here and help you understand why certain actors are still promoting this thing. While those associated with the film insist it’s “motion-capture” and not animation, it still looks like a very long cartoon.

In the course of spilling out the adventure, Cameron has references to “Moby-Dick,” “Free Willy” and his own “Titanic.”

Through the Sully family (which includes a “Land of the Lost”-like human boy named Spider), we get a sense of the stakes and why protecting the tulkan (a whale-like creature) is so vital. Humans have, once again, sapped their planet, prompting a team of them to come looking to colonize Pandora. Jake fights back and, soon, his children are in danger. To keep out of harm’s way, they find shelter with the Metkayina reef people. They’re blue, too, but they have extremities more attuned to swimming and a way of communicating with the dead.

Interestingly, the Pandora characters resemble Robert Pattinson and Brendan Fraser. The adolescents sound like beach bums in Hawaii (adding “bro” in so many times you’ll want to scream). And the spiritual connections are strong enough to start a religion.

Still, this all boils down to an ecology story. Humans don’t realize the harm they’re causing; more enlightened Pandorans do and try to stop them.

Big names – Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver and Edie Falco among them – float in and out but it comes down to Stephen Lang who, as Sully’s former Marine commander, gets the most attention. He has connections here and isn’t afraid to sever them. The relationships bear watching, even though so much gets in the way it’s hard to remember what happened when.

Download the new and improved Sioux City Journal app