The sequel to the biggest film of all time is finally here. Alex Casey and Stewart Sowman-Lund weigh in with their reactions to Avatar 2: The Way of Water.

1. I actually kind of love 3D

It’s been so long since 3D disappeared from the world that watching Avatar 2 in IMAX was the first time I’ve had to grapple with wearing regular glasses at the same time as those obscene 3D goggles. Yes, the last time I watched a 3D movie, my vision was apparently all good. But regardless of the uncomfortable heaviness on my nose as I juggled two pairs of glasses, I was absolutely in awe of the 3D achievements in Avatar 2. This is far more than just a movie where a few gun shots come flying at the screen (although – spoiler – that does happen a bit), but it’s a cinematic experience where the 3D actually immerses you in the world of Pandora. The underwater scenes where characters were swimming through tunnels slowly filling with water were particularly claustrophobic. / Stewart Sowman-Lund

2. Big freaky sea creatures

For all the movie genres that Avatar 2 spans, my favourite is when Cameron stops making an action movie, or a family drama, or a David Attenborough documentary, and leans hard into making a big old creature feature. The arrival of the Tulkun, a 300-foot-long mega genius whale with the emotional intelligence of Mother Theresa or something, is a truly jaw-dropping bombshell that enters the undersea villa. When she starts seeking revenge on the nasty hunters? Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular. / Alex Casey

3. It’s very long… but maybe not too long?

I realised at about the two hour and 40 minute mark of The Way of Water that the film is longer than Hamilton: the Musical (including its intermission). It is undoubtedly a long movie. That being said, the first and last hours absolutely whizzed by for me. The middle hour is pretty chatty – more on the dialogue below – but aside from leaving the theatre with stiff joints I didn’t mind the overall runtime.  / SSL

4. The HFR still looks kinda weird

Remember when Shortland Street went HD and Chris Warner suddenly looked like he was tottering around the hospital like Charlie Chaplin on fast-forward? I remember the exact same uncanny feeling when they shot and projected The Hobbit at double the frame rate (48fps instead of 24fps), leading to a bunch of think pieces about whether or not HFR is the future of filmmaking or if it just looks really weird. 

Avatar 2 incorporates a blend of HFR and regular frame rate using some truly brainiac maths equation logic from James Cameron. I’ll let him explain himself: “In any part of the scene that we want at 24fps, we just double the frames. And so, they actually show the same frame twice, but, but the viewer doesn’t see it that way. And so essentially we’re just using a simple hack to use the high frame rate platform that already exists.”

I don’t really understand a word of that but I bring it up because I occasionally noticed some of the wider action sequences of Avatar 2 leaning a bit Chris Warner as Charlie Chaplin, and it snapped me out of feeling completely immersed under the flipper of a big busted whale. Once again, early opinion is split. Some say that the HFR is “endlessly distracting” whereas others call it “the first great high frame movie”. My take? I would simply use fewer frames. / AC

5. There are some incredible clangers

You don’t need to have the lung capacity of Kate Winslet to hold your breath until the first line of Corny Cameron dialogue. I can’t quite remember if it was “feeling blue?” or “why so blue” but there’s definitely a blue reference early on that is so on the nose they might as well have got Eiffel 65 to do the official soundtrack. “You’re grounded – no flying for a month,” was another delightful bit of wordplay that got a small golf clap from me. There’s also a distracting amount of adolescent boy humour (“butthole” “penis face” etc) but perhaps that is just what happens when the writer is trapped in the body of an 11-year-old dirtbiker. / AC

6. The Na’vi really like to say ‘bro’ and ‘cuz’

Alex has already commented on the shifty dialogue in The Way of Water (most noticeable during the middle hour), but what stuck out to me even more than the classic Cameron clangers was the absolute abundance of blue aliens saying “bro” and “cuz”. / SSL

7. Why Winslet?

I get that Cameron has been trying to get Winslet back in the drink since 1997, but I didn’t realise that she would be playing Ronal, who leads the Metkanyina Clan of water Na’vi with her husband Tonowari (played by Cliff Curtis). Given that this tribe in particular freely borrows Māori elements including tā moko, pūkana, and even a “space haka”, having Winslet in this role seems like an extremely bizarre casting choice to say the very least. / AC

8. This is the definition of a Hollywood blockbuster

Every couple of months Marvel pumps out another billion dollar popcorn flick and I happily cough up to see it on the biggest screen. But Avatar 2 successfully made me question whether I should be doing that. This is what a Hollywood blockbuster really is. It’s more than just IP running around in front of a greenscreen, it’s a fully realised world that couples extraordinary effects with some genuine – though occasionally cloying – emotion. The most recent example I can think of is Top Gun Maverick, another sequel that dominated the box office for months and yet proved that dumb action movies can be more than money makers, but proper movies. / SSL

9. You could also easily not watch it

I will admit I was moved to tears by the plight of the Tulkun (huge fan of Magic in the Water over here, which I can only assume was a huge touchstone for Cameron) and since the screening have felt a deep urge to watch more Blue Planet and really get “into” the sea more. But overall, I left Avatar 2 with the exact same overall feeling in my soul as Avatar 1: I’m not mad that I watched it, but I have absolutely no desire to ever watch it ever again. / AC

10. But if you are going to see it, see it at the cinema

If you do want to watch The Way of Water you should definitely “splash out” on the full IMAX 3D experience. Whether you like the smooth 48fps or not, that is how James Cameron intended it to be watched etc. Go all out, see it for yourself – and then decide whether you enjoyed it. I had an incredible time, and yet I really doubt I’ll be clamouring to watch it when it finally comes out on Disney+ in about two years time. / SSL

Just how weird has the news been in 2022? Let Alex Casey count the ways.

Check any news site any time of day in 2022 and you’ll be smacked in the face with images of war, crime, civil unrest, climate catastrophe and economic strife. But, every now and again, there is a ray of light in the darkness. Sometimes it’s an interesting object stuck up a nose. Other times it’s a searing op-ed about a sausage roll. Most of the time it’s a cat on public transport. Let us take a moment to celebrate 2022’s strangest news stories – the Odd Stuffs, the Sideswipes, the stories that piqued our curiosity and threw a bit of bizarro among the badness.

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1. Sandwich scam: Smoker finds pouch tobacco replaced with bread

This story from March 2022 detailed the experience of an Auckland woman who spent $75 on a pouch of Port Royal, only to find that it was filled with a mouldy old sandwich. New World didn’t believe her story, so she took her complaint straight to British American Tobacco. “I was like, ‘look, you’re not going to believe me, and it sounds ridiculous, but there was a peanut butter sandwich in place of my tobacco’,” she told Stuff. “And in the saddest, most woebegone voice he said, ‘Sophie, I do believe you. This is an ongoing problem we’ve been having’.” Turns out the old sandwich switcheroo is a prolific scam across the world, and we can only hope to have more awareness around bread-based-bamboozlement in 2023. 

2. Oh gourd, monster ‘potato’ not actually a spud

In 2021, Dug the potato was a symbol of hope for Aotearoa after a particularly shitty year. The tank of a tuber set the country, and soon the world, abuzz with his gargantuan girth – could humble old New Zealand have just unearthed the biggest potato in history? Alas, celebrity is a mask that eats into the face and it was only a matter of time before things turned sour. In March it was revealed that extensive DNA testing done on Dug found him to not be a potato at all, but a variation of gourd. “It’s been a real roller-coaster of potato-rama,” said Dug’s owner (father?) Colin. “We hopped on the roller-coaster eyes wide open and enjoyed the ride and this was the last real twist.” We were all there with you Colin, we were all there with you. 

3. Christchurch boy discovers giant earthworm in backyard

In September, nine-year-old Barnaby Domigan introduced the world to Dead Fred, a one metre long earthworm that he found in his back garden in Christchurch. He told Checkpoint that it was “slimy and squishy and stuff like that” and that he “thought of it as like an amazing discovery and I could not believe my eyes.” Neither could we. After slandering the big worm in Live Updates, The Spinoff was forced to apologise to Dead Fred after the biodiversity community took umbrage at our description of him as “nightmare fuel”, a “dirty earth snake” and a “hell monster”. 

4. The enduring mystery of the Hobsonville Point ham

I know it’s gauche to include one’s own work in such a list, but I managed to write 3,500 words on International Women’s Day about an imported $2,400 ham that was found on a sleepy suburban street in Hobsonville Point. Nine months later I am still no closer to the truth (sexist!) but I did get an update from Raf, who found the ham while out walking with his dog. “We kept the ham for maybe a month or so before throwing a homemade pizza dinner at our place where we made an honest attempt at getting rid of most of it,” he said. “We never found out who bought it, nor why it was disposed of. It will forever remain a mystery.” 

5. Bull has ‘legend status’ after surviving 80km trip down river

Including the BULLer River???? Come on!!!!!!

6. Clarke’s cat-ch: Prime Minister’s partner hangs with funny feline in Tonga

There have been so many terrific cat stories out there that it is hard to choose just one. The 2022 crimewave appeared to extend to the feline community, as Stuff reported in May that kleptomaniac cats in Tauranga were found to be working together in a “cat gang” to steal socks, underwear and… mops? Further south, the ODT had a stunning piece on mafioso mob boss Bowie, known as the “gangster cat” of Lawrence. But the greatest cat news came from the first man himself, who shared captivating footage of a cat called Charcoal who simply adores being buried up to his neck in sand. “That’s about the most random thing I’ve seen. And I’ve seen some things!” one commenter wrote at the time.

7. Rare ‘gravel maggot’ found on remote West Coast beach

Gravel maggot > Goblin mode. In May, this extremely rare species of sea slug washed up on the West Coast and our lives were never quite the same. Named Smeagol Hilaris after the pallid Lord of the Rings character, everyone had an opinion on Smeagol. Some thought he looked like Guylian chocolate. Others thought he looked like coke bottle lolly with the sugar granules sucked off. Whatever he looks like, he is our precious and he lives in all of us. 

8. The masked Air NZ baby is the hero we need

It’s been a great year for masks, and not just because Mikey Havoc revealed on The Masked Singer that he has a collection of over one hundred masks. In July, a masked baby on an Air New Zealand flight went viral on social media for being both very cute and very mysterious. “Gotham has Batman, Metropolis has Superman – now New Zealand has The Mask,” wrote Stewart Sowman-Lund on his quest to unmask the Masked Baby. “I may never know for sure. But I do know that in these confusing orange light, omicron-infused times – this is the hero New Zealand deserves, even if it’s not the one we need right now.”

9. Why does Erin Simpson put a raw egg in a sock in her baby’s crib?

Humans have been talking for tens of thousands of years but only now has this combination of words been put together in this order. In November, Stuff reported that influencer, former television host and Hobsonville Ham informant Erin Simpson has been dangling a raw egg in a sock in the corner of her son’s crib to ease his teething pain. I’m less interested in the TikTok pseudo-science here and more concerned with the fact that this is not the first time Erin Simpson has made headlines for challenging egg-based behaviour. Third strike and you’re out, Simpson.

10. Century-old ‘Frozen Charlotte’ dolls unearthed in archaeological dig 

In June, archeologists dug up a bunch of old objects in Christchurch’s CBD including a chamber pot, glass bottles and a gaggle of scary dollies called “Frozen Charlottes”. These girlies from the late 1800s were inspired by an creepy poem called “A Corpse Going to a Ball”, about a young woman who froze to death on her way to a New Year’s Eve ball. That poem then inspired a folk ballad named Fair Charlotte, which then inspired millions of corpse dollies named FROZEN CHARLOTTE, which eventually ended up here in modern day Aotearoa where don’t need any more BAD THINGS. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Put. Them. Back.