Posted in: 20th Century Studios, Movies, Review | Tagged: avatar, Avatar: The Way Of Water, james cameron, The Way of Water

Avatar: The Way Of Water Is So Pretty, But So Simple {Review}

Published Sun, 18 Dec 2022 07:17:11 -0600

by Jeremy Konrad

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Avatar: The Way Of Water took forever to get to us, and it takes forever to watch. The re-introduction to Pandora 13 years after the first is clumsy and asks many of us to try and remember a story that most have forgotten. With simple characters and a basic story that mostly just rehashes the first film, there is nothing to sink your teeth into in this three-hour-plus film. That being said, it is one of the prettiest films you will ever see when you see it under ideal circumstances. Strip the 3D away, and the excitement lasts about five minutes.

Avatar: The Way Of Water Won't Change Your Mind

We pick up ten years after the events of the first film. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Ney'tiri (Zoe Saldana) have had children and formed a family, as the Na'vi have forced the humans off Pandora. But wait, they come back! And they brought all the dead Marines with them, including Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who have all had back-ups of their consciousness put into Avatar bodies. When they attack, Jake and the fam have to leave their home in the forest for the water tribe called the Metkayina. As they learn the way of water, Quaritch lays siege to Pandora to find Jake, all leading to an epic battle.

It is amazing how simple this story is. It is also amazing how little time they want to spend trying to make sense of any of it as well. For a film like Avatar that most people couldn't tell you more than three facts about, James Cameron assumes that you will remember everything about Pandora that he does. Or maybe he just doesn't care. The only thing that matters here is the experience. The story, the characters, and these details are immaterial to Cameron. All that matters is the immersion. And in 3D, it works.

This is one of the prettiest films ever made, with the caveat that it only applies to the 3D version. If you do not see Avatar in 3D, it is almost guaranteed that you will have a way different experience and probably end up disliking the film more than those who opt into the full experience. The underwater scenes alone are breathtaking, same for the final battle scene, which is an amazing achievement in effects and staging. Everyone on the production crew should take a bow.

This makes it such a head-scratcher that Cameron didn't even try with the script and story. Large gaps in logic and storytelling that existed in the first film are even worse here, as we are only told to care about the next pretty stretch of visuals. Sadly, this also extends to the characters. All of the kids in this film are one-note, insufferable caricatures. For a movie with the run time this has, there is very little we learn about each of them aside from their roles in the family, and when tragedy strikes, you won't care. Saldana is barely asked to do anything, which is a shame, as she was a bright spot in the first film, and anything she is in really. No, the whole movie hinges on Worthington and Lang, and while Lang is a great bad guy, his foil is not. Worthington's weird monotone delivery and line-shouting are distracting and off-putting. It feels like he doesn't want to be there, which makes us not want to watch him.

Like the first Avatar, The Way of Water is a bloated film short on substance and long on flash. This series is more an experience than a film, which is the way Cameron must want it. As a storyteller, he is stuck in an old way of doing things, and though this will still make its money as a spectacle, that is all it will remain unless he puts in the effort to make it something else. For now, he seems content to dazzle us into the theater. Will that continue to work across the three sequels he has planned is a different story.

Avatar: the Way Of Water

Review by Jeremy Konrad

5/10

Like the first Avatar, The Way of Water is a bloated film short on substance and long on flash. Pretty as it gets, but nothing to sink your teeth into.

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