Even for someone who appreciates what the technology has to offer - pristine 3D action scenes with no blurring or strobing - it took me a while to get used to flipping between high frame rate and 24 fps footage. In 2016, he noted that HFR is 'a tool, not a format,' and later he rejected Ang Lee's attempt at using HFR for Gemini Man's entire runtime.Ĭameron's dual-pronged approach to HFR is bound to be controversial. This is a strategy Cameron has been discussing for years. The Way of Water often jumps from hyper-real HFR to pseudo-24 fps in the same scene - at one point, I counted around a dozen switches in a few minutes. If this sounds a bit confusing, your brain may have a similar reaction while watching the film. To do that, the entire film actually runs at 48fps, while the calmer scenes use doubled frames to trick your brain into seeing them at the typical theatrical frame rate. Rather than using HFR throughout the entire movie, Cameron relies on it for major action sequences, while slower dialog scenes appear as if they're running at 24fps. Unlike the handful of high frame rate movies we've already seen – The Hobbit trilogy, as well as Ang Lee's Gemini Man and Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk – the Avatar sequel deploys the technology in a unique way. That leads to 3D action scenes that feel incredibly immersive - at times HFR can make you forget that the lush alien wildlife on Pandora isn't real. Certain scenes play back at 48 frames per second, giving them a smoother and more realistic sheen compared to the standard 24fps. Perhaps most impressive, though, is that James Cameron has managed to craft the best high frame rate (HFR) movie yet.

Fans of the original film often had to make excuses for writer and director James Cameron's stilted script, but that's no longer the case for The Way of Water, thanks to additional help from Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa (who both worked on the recent criminally under-loved Planet of the Apes trilogy). It's a sweeping epic that reflects on the nature of families, our relationship to the natural world and humanity's endless thirst for violence and plunder. As a sequel to the highest-grossing film ever, which was criticized for its formulaic story (and the surprisingly small ripple it had on pop culture), the new movie is a genuine surprise.

Avatar: The Way of Water for iphone download