The first waves of reviews were published on Tuesday evening, with the film scoring a strong 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, out of the first 133 reviews.

Critics from around the world - including Daily Mail's own Brian Viner - heaped praise on Cameron's direction and astonishing visuals, though the story and bloated three-hour-12-minute runtime were points of contention in many reviews.

Viner stated in his four-stars-out-of-five-stars review, 'This sequel is tremendous fun, even bigger and better than the original, but by golly it will test your bladder.'

He added, 'Yes, this is an insanely long film – but so was David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia, which director James Cameron cited as a major influence on Avatar for its 'good, old-fashioned, adolescent adventure storytelling', and that was even longer.'