For scene after scene, Jake, Neytiri and their brood stroll on the sand and swim in the sparkling sea. The Sully kids flirt and bicker with the mer-kids via some rudimentary dialogue mostly made up of the words "bro" and "cuz". One of Jake's sons bonds with a lonely whale. And everyone spouts new-age hippy platitudes, along with solemn lessons on the history and geography of Pandora. It's like the irritatingly idyllic gap-year social-media posts of someone you hardly know, or a re-edit of the Return of the Jedi in which Luke, Han and Leia hang out in the Ewok village for hours on end. You're promised a Vietnam War allegory with echoes of Philip K Dick's mind-bending science fiction. What you get is the twee and vapid tale of a boy and a whale splashing around together.
