Review of Avatar: The Way of Water: Ever Feel Like You're Sinking?

 James Cameron's eagerly anticipated Avatar sequel from 2009 suffers from many of the same issues.

Review of Avatar: The Way of Water: Ever Feel Like You're Sinking?

Does anyone still care about Avatar? In the lengthy 13 years since James Cameron's paradigm-shifting science fiction blockbuster was launched, that is the question that has perplexed movie critics and pop culture commentators. While the 2009 film pushed the boundaries of CG technology, reintroduced 3D to a new generation of moviegoers, and became the highest-grossing box office hit of all time (with a brief period in which it was dethroned), it has almost completely disappeared from popular culture over the past ten years, having been replaced by the MCU, Stranger Things, the streaming revolution, and a variety of other entertainment game-changers.

While waiting for the visual effects to once again match the vision, Cameron worked methodically on not just one but four Avatar sequels. He had more stories in the works that are set on Pandora, the moon. The property suddenly seems to be front and canter in the cultural debate again thanks to the re-release of Avatar itself earlier this fall in a dazzling new 4K remaster and the initial trailer for the first of Cameron's four sequels. And now that Avatar: The Way of Water has finally been released in theaters, the issue of whether it was worth the wait can be answered.

The solution is ambiguous. There is no denying that Cameron has once again produced a visually spectacular, achingly beautiful movie, with even more attention to detail and immersive world-building than in 2009. even be subject to some disagreement whether Cameron created a movie that is primarily animated but includes a few live-action performers instead of the opposite. However, one of his key decisions—to shoot the majority of the film at the contentiously debated 48 frames per second frame rate—proves to be far more troublesome.

The fact that Cameron has essentially prioritized visual effects and cinematic bravado over plot and character is much more of a problem than with the previous Avatar. The Way of Water's plot, however, is weak and (pun intended) quite predictable, unlike the first movie, which effectively took the "white savior rescues Indigenous people" template from Dances with Wolves, the Disney version of Pocahontas, and any number of similar stories.Watery, repeating key moments from the first film, and with little real character growth for any of the main characters.

We strongly advise readers who want to enter The Way of Water completely unspoiled to stop reading now because it appears that some readers consider that any plot description at all constitutes a spoiler. For the record, the most of what we'll talk about in the next paragraphs takes place in the first 30 minutes of this 190-minute movie and was hinted at in the trailers.

More than a decade has passed since the events of the first movie when The Way of Water begins, and we are reintroduced to Jake Sully (played in motion capture by the Sam Worthington), whose mind and spirit were totally incorporated into his Na'vi body at the film's conclusion. A human boy named Miles, also known as Spider (Jake Champion), who was born on the human base in the first movie but now lives among the Na'vi, and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), a teenage Na'vi with an odd connection to the late Dr. Grace Augustine from the first movie, are both adopted children of Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaa) (also played by Weaver).

The Way of Water's strangest plot twist occurs here: despite the fact that human colonists were expelled from Pandora at the end of the first film, this one begins with the pragmatist, ruthless Gen. Ardmore leading their devastating return (Edie Falco). And they're no longer merely in this place to mine the moon for "unobtainium." The objective today is to entirely colonize Pandora, with Earth on the verge of becoming uninhabitable.

When it is revealed that the Sullys and their Omatikaya clan have been driven out of the forest and into hiding in Pandora's floating mountains, where they conduct a sort of insurgency against the humans, the movie then jumps forward a full year, giving us the impression that a whole movie is kind of missing. Meanwhile, the latter have built a whole city on the coast and are now sending out "recombinants"—elite troops with human memories implanted in their bodies.to enter the actual Na'vi, a group of fierce Na'vi warriors.

Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who was murdered by Jake and Neytiri in the first movie but has been revived in a Na'vi body, is one of those recombinants. When Jake realizes that Quaritch is seeking retribution against him and his entire family, the Sullys flee to Pandora's extensive network of islands, where they hide among the Metkayina clan, a tribe that places a strong emphasis on the water, and attempt to assimilate to their new tribe's traditions even as Quaritch sets out on a murderous search for them.

All of that is crammed into the movie's first act, and the timing is awry right away. The cadence of The Way of Water is stop-and-start, never really picking up.steam. While the movie's lengthy second act describes the Sullys' immersion into the Metkayina clan's ways, their relationship to specific underwater life forms, and the conflict between the Sully kids and the kids of Metkayina leaders Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal, much of what occurs in the first act feels hurried in order to get the main players back on the board (Kate Winslet).

The issue with this is that none of the children are given more than a token attribute at most, with the probable exception of Kiri (played with a vivacious energy by the wonderful Weaver). The elder son of Jake and Neytiri, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), is supposed to be the responsible one, whereas Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), the younger son, is the disobedient one.Little daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) is there just to be cute and cause mischief, and she is constantly getting into trouble. Their conversations with the Metkayina children could just as easily have taken place in an American playground, complete with blue-skinned aliens jarringly using the phrases "bro" and "dude."

Jake and Neytiri themselves act rather passively for the majority of the middle of the film, mostly being used to yell at Lo'ak for his most recent misdeed and at Neteyam for failing to look out for his sibling. Even less work is given to Tonowari and Ronal, which is a terrible waste of Curtis and Winslet's talents (who barely makes an impression here under the motion capture). But nobody here, not even Jake and Neytiri, has much of a character journey at all; in contrast to the previous time, when at least Jake progressed from being a hesitant human soldier to a tribal leader, this time around Jake begins and finishes with "Protect the family."

The greatest culprit in all of this is Quaritch, who in the previous film was one of Cameron's most one-dimensional, cartoonish antagonists.is becoming more apparent here (along with the rest of the humans, to be honest). While a feeble attempt is made to give this Quaritch character some shading through an unexpected plot twist, he is only walking revenge and leads the film down a predictable route to a rematch between Jake and his colonel.

All of this results in The Way of Water being a bloated, frequently dull mess of a film, despite being surrounded by some of the most incredible visual effects ever used in a film. There is no doubt that the CG employed to build Pandora represents a significant improvement over the first movie, with the Na'vi appearing to be true three-dimensional beings. Even their skin tone, features, and facial expressions have contributed to astonishing advances Nearly the entire running duration gives the impression that you are witnessing live animals.

The settings itself follow suit, with Pandora boasting even more exquisitely crafted and realistic settings than previously. Even though the action takes place underwater is rarely particularly intriguing, the underwater moments are vibrant and full of life. Watching all of this in shot after shot is really amazing, and even the 3D this time is more fully interwoven into the images for a more subtle form of depth sense. The floating mountains and the atolls on which the Metkayina reside.

Similar to Ang Lee and Peter Jackson before him, Cameron makes a mistake when he uses high frame rate (HFR) filming, in which the visuals are shot at Instead of the long-standing industry standard of 24 fps, 48 fps was used. As a result, the images lose some of their "film" quality and, in theory, take on a more "live" feel. However, just as with Lee's Gemini Man and Jackson's infamous The Hobbit, it resembles a dated video game or TV video broadcast rather than anything else.

Although Cameron and his colleagues have somewhat improved the format for The Way of Water, it is still obtrusive, full of artifacts, and diminishes the artistic beauty of cinema to something more comparable to a sports broadcast. We regret that he chose this format for the film because it is awkward and creatively reductive, and it lessens the impact of the otherwise excellent effects work in this movie.the following three Avatar films).

It's still disturbing to reach the third act with little to no interest in the people or how the plot develops, despite everything that is happening visually, from the highs of discovering more of Pandora to the lows of the 48fps format. Even the late reveal of a secondary antagonist comes across as forced, and the remainder of the plot serves just to set the stage for the sequel.

Even if Avatar: The Way of Water's three and a half hours seem excessive, we have no regrets about seeing it (a lot longer than some of the pumped-up superhero movies Cameron likes to slam). It begs to be viewed in its entirety on a large screen.the bells and whistles, if only because James Cameron's vision contains numerous components that will repeatedly make viewers gasp for air. However, we regret that he appears to have prioritized all that visual enchantment above a compelling narrative to go along with his outstanding world-building. So, we wish he had heightened our level of concern.

On December 16, Avatar: The Way of Water opens in theaters.

Rating:5/3.5