directed by James Cameron
written by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno
Here's a fun fact: famed auteur Quentin Tarantino, who auspiciously burst onto the filmmaking scene in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, and who is quite well-known for taking his sweet time in making films, so much so that in thirty years he has only made ten feature films (nine if one counts Kill Bill as one movie), has actually made just as many movies as film titan James Cameron, who had a ten-year head start on him, having made his first movie in 1982. To me, it is such a strange thing to consider that the quirky arthouse darling has made just as many films as one of the most commercially successful filmmakers of all time.
After a fairly prolific run in the 80s in which he made four films and in the 90s in which he made three, Cameron has made a habit of making his audiences wait for his next movie. The 13-year-gap between 2009's Avatar and its sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, is the longest that Cameron has ever made us wait for a new film from him. Inevitably, we have to ask, it is worth the wait?
Well, the answer is yes, and no.
An undisclosed number of years after the events of the first film, in which the Na'vi, the native population of the fictional moon Pandora, expelled the marauding humans of the Resource Development Administration (RDA) from their planet, the formerly hero of the first film, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has long since discarded his paraplegic human body and is living full-time in his Na'vi/human hybrid avatar, is living in peace with his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their children. He has assumed leadership over the Omaticaya clan of the Na'vi and is living in relative peace and happiness, when the RDA come back, this time with bigger ambitions, and better guns. They also have a bunch of grunts who died during their first tour of Pandora but whose consciousnesses were "saved" and who are back now, with new Na'vi/human hybrid bodies, and a score to settle. Foremost among these is Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) who died at Neytiri's hands in the last film and is now itching for some payback.
The renewed threat from the RDA is no laughing matter and in a little over a year, they have Jake, whom they have identified as the leader of the Na'vi resistance, and his family on the run. They end up taking refuge among the Metkayina, a tribe of Na'vi who live along the ocean led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal (Kate Winslet), many kilometers away from the forest that Jake and his family have had to flee to keep the RDA from laying waste to the Omaticaya. Will they be safe there, or will the RDA find Jake and destroy everything he holds dear?
To get straight to the point: I enjoyed myself. I must qualify, though, that I think a large part of this was down to the conscious management of my expectations from the film. The first film has often been derided, (and not entirely incorrectly) as a high-tech version of the Australian-American cartoon "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest," so the decidedly derivative story was never the main draw of the first film. It was always about the visuals, and Cameron's remarkable world-building, which he kicked off in spectacular fashion back with the first film and actually manages to continue this time around. The movie is truly a visual masterpiece, with just enough story to string the gorgeous imagery together. Presented in IMAX 3-D, the movie is astonishing to behold, and reminded me of what the format is really capable of. As much as I have enjoyed most of the offerings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I must readily admit that they rarely ever came up with movies that justified the hefty IMAX 3-D premium. This, however, is not the case with Avatar: The Way of Water; it takes full advantage of the format and then some.
Unfortunately, that really is all the movie has going for it, as the film's characters are mostly flat and forgettable, with nearly no discernible arcs, and the story just trots out one trope after another. The ham-handed "save the whales" message near the end feels like it was shoved in with a crowbar. It was just fortunate that it was fun to behold. I will say, though that anyone who praises the storytelling here while putting down all Marvel movies as empty spectacle needs to have their head examined. And yes, the film was considerably too long.
Ironically, the one character in the entire film who displays anything even approaching some form of development is the antagonist, Miles Quaritch, who has to come to terms with the fact that he's basically a copy of his former self and the fact that when he died, his son was left on Pandora and has grown up fatherless. He is initially indifferent to his son Spider (Jake Champion) who has grown up feral and actually more fond of the Na'vi than his own species, but this changes as the narrative progresses. Quaritch actually gets to make the beginnings of a transition from one-dimensional cliche to nuanced character, which is more than one can say about any of the other characters in the story.
Another quibble I have is actually with the presentation of the film, which for reasons I truly cannot understand jumps from one frame rate to the other repeatedly throughout the film. In other words, without any discernible transition or narrative reason, the film jumps between the normal frame rate of 30 frames per second rate that film's are shown in and the 60 frames per second. It was extremely jarring and felt distinctly out of character for Cameron, who is normally on top of this kind of thing.
In the end, I don't have any regrets. This was a good time at the movies, and really demonstrates quite emphatically why streaming is simply no substitute for the theatrical movie experience, but it definitely isn't the masterpiece that its promoters are insisting it is.
7/10
