WHAT IT IS ABOUT
Avatar: The Way of Water is the follow-up to the 2009 box office phenomenon Avatar, which went on to gross over a whopping 2.7 billion dollars in its run (and it has almost reached 3 billion now after subsequent re-releases). It once again follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), now committed to his blue humanoid Na’vi body and chief of the Omatikaya clan, and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), 16 years after the events of the first film. Now with four children, the peace they found for a short period of time is interrupted by the RDA rebuilding its presence on Pandora. They also bring a recombinant Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the villain of the first film, now in Na’vi form, sent to chase Jake down because of his influence over the Na’vi. This forces Jake and his family to flee their home in the woods and seek refuge with a water clan.
WHERE IT COMES FROM
Delayed for years, Avatar: The Way of Water reached cinemas 13 years after the original. As with the first, the film had a long post-production timeline due to Cameron’s wish for technology to catch up to his ambitions, to the point that at least one cast member even assumed, years after filming her part, that the movie had already been released. The result is another major technical leap, this time centered on underwater performance capture and making water feel believable.
Up to that point, Cameron had worked on sequels to other directors’ work and on one of his own (Terminator 2: Judgment Day). His stated desire to dedicate the latter part of his career to Pandora sparked initial skepticism and dissatisfaction among loyal fans, who missed the inventiveness and creativity of a director who had previously helped redefine the blockbuster landscape. The most cynical even predicted that, like the 2009 film, it would be a box office bomb, since the first, despite monumental box office numbers, had little cultural following.
Those people were proven wrong, as Cameron once again brought people to cinemas to experience the film in IMAX 3D. Despite its immense budget, reported to be in the $350 million to $460 million range, the film was highly successful for 20th Century Studios and Disney, crossing $2 billion worldwide and enabling Cameron to continue with the sequels he clearly wants to make.
THE REVIEW
Even more than the first, Avatar: The Way of Water quite clearly demonstrates that James Cameron’s heart now lies in technical advancements. He has always been one to push effects to their limits, impressing audiences in the early nineties with his liquid metal villain in Terminator 2, with Titanic’s sinking scenes, and by bringing 3D back to cinemas with 2009’s Avatar. Up until then, though, the effects always complemented the story. Despite how simplistic and derivative the original Avatar was, it was told with confidence and care, and it immersed audiences as much through its storytelling as through its visuals and production design.
In The Way of Water, the priorities shift, and the plot becomes secondary, almost excusing itself as a visual showcase. Where Cameron, in both Aliens and T2, made massive changes that made those franchises feel fresh and exciting (escalating from one xenomorph to a whole planet full of them in the former, and flipping Schwarzenegger’s robot into the hero in the latter), it is deeply disappointing that this sequel instead takes shortcuts and makes leaps of logic that feel more like a straight to VHS Disney sequel from the 90s than a huge blockbuster. Like those forced sequels to The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast, The Way of Water brings back dead characters, shifts focus to the children of the main characters, introduces kids who were never mentioned in the first film, and repeats a lot of plot points from the original.
It doesn’t help that so much of this is established through clunky dialogue, with characters delivering blunt exposition through voice-overs or direct statements that never sound like how people speak. The first hour, in particular, is rough in its attempt to catch the audience up, sacrificing proper storytelling. Without the video log framing of the first film, Jake’s voice-over can feel like a series of bullet points read straight to the audience. After the pieces are in place and Jake’s family finally reaches the water clan, the film dedicates a significant amount of time to establishing the clan’s culture, just like the first film did. And because so much of it echoes the original (the first had the Na’vi mourning the destruction of their trees, and now it is the killing of whales), it provokes a great sense of déjà vu and starts to feel like homework.
It all changes, however, in the film’s third act, when it shifts fully into action territory and the battles take ownership of the remaining hour. Once that point is reached, we are suddenly reminded why James Cameron is a master of his craft. The spectacle takes hold and becomes relentless. There are plenty of impressive action set pieces that are clear to follow, well-orchestrated, and beautiful to look at. There are scenes that will make audiences sit on the edge of their seats, like two highly thrilling underwater chases, and some extremely well-realized moments of whale-like aliens battling against a boat. Does it justify two hours of bad dialogue and coincidences to get there? It kind of does.
The visual effects are, as expected, mind-blowing. Underwater has never looked more beautiful, and it makes Wakanda Forever, released one month prior, look amateur in comparison. The confidence in the effects is so strong that scenes are never cut up to simplify the work, so we get long takes of boats breaking apart and water interactions, all while the illusion holds. Na’vi skin occasionally still looks a little rubbery, but their faces continue to be expressive, and we buy them as real characters.
The production design is once again immaculate, giving the humans some very cool machines and constructing a whole way of life for a new Na’vi clan, full of detail. The cinematography is also gorgeous, especially during the underwater swims and, of course, in the action sequences.
Performances take a back seat this time. Zoe Saldaña’s Neytiri, who was the heart of the first film, is pushed aside narratively. Worthington’s Jake is once again not the most charismatic protagonist, and the kids’ personalities can feel too close to familiar Disney archetypes to leave a mark. There is a new human boy, Spider, and while young actor Jack Champion is efficient in the physicality, he feels a little limited in the more demanding dramatic scenes.
Much has been said about Kate Winslet’s commitment to this film, including the breath-holding training for the underwater work. Still, the truth is that, despite the slight resemblance between her Na’vi face and the actress’s, plus her commanding voice, Winslet doesn’t bring much to the character. The two actors most worth mentioning are the ones who return, for head-scratching reasons, from the first film. If it sounds weird to hear Sigourney Weaver’s instantly identifiable voice coming out of a teenager’s mouth, it is compensated for by the innocence and wonder she brings to her new character. And Stephen Lang once again has fun with his villain, even if the film would probably be better served by a new, original one.
Closing it out, Simon Franglen’s score is greatly responsible for keeping us in Pandora throughout the runtime. Expanding on the melodies and instrumentation of the late James Horner’s original while crafting beautiful new themes of his own, Franglen’s music is undeniably “Avatar,” and it is one of the film’s strongest assets.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There is a point very early on when Jake says in narration that they have become so used to the Na’vi language that it sounds like English to them, and the film immediately shifts everyone into English. A different route could have been to keep their dialogue in an alien language and let audiences focus entirely on the visuals and spectacle, because that is where Avatar: The Way of Water shines.
If the narrative conveniences and bad dialogue make for a rough first half, the expertly orchestrated action scenes more than justify the price of admission, becoming the kind of experience that demands the biggest screen possible. Although I would rather see Cameron use his innovative mindset to give us new stories and characters, seeing him return to Pandora will always be welcome, as long as he maintains the same high standard of spectacle.