From the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien to the outer-space epics of George Lucas, all myth-making ventures involve a degree of hubris on the part of their creator. But filmmaker James Cameron’s hubris, like his budgets, is bigger than most: The 68-year-old filmmaker takes it as a given that audiences, after all these years, will be as familiar with all this Avatar business as they are with some religions.

In his long, dull, amazingly unimaginative, and fundamentally anti-human sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron plops the faithful and the uninitiated alike back onto Pandora, the seemingly evergreen planet whose native residents include members of the Na’vi species, gigantic, lumbering, hunter-gathering Smurfs with the gait of Jar Jar Binks and a serene, one-with-nature disposition that suggests some combination of E.T., Frodo Baggins, and Kermit the Frog.