Avatar: The Way of Water Review

It has been 13 years since James Cameron introduced audiences to the world of Pandora. Cameron returns to the world he created with the long-awaited sequel to Avatar.

Since the events of Avatar, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have started a family. Their world gets rocked when The Sky People return to conquer Pandora and Jake leads a guerrilla campaign against the forces of humanity. An old enemy returns and forces Jake and his family to flee to their home and seek sanctuary with the Metkayina, the reef people of Pandora.

Avatar was a juggernaut of a film when it came out in 2009. It was the second film to break the $2 billion mark and Cameron broke his own record for making the highest-grossing film.  Avatar reclaimed the title of the highest-grossing film from Avengers: Endgame after a re-release. The film became known as a special effects extravaganza and its success caused the 3D boom of the 2010s.

Avatar does have its distractors. It has been called “Dances with Smurfs” and “Pocahontas in Space,” whilst other people have claimed that it has fallen out of the public consciousness after its release. However, Avatar must have done something right to have been so successful. I enjoyed the first film as a sci-fi fantasy adventure.

Cameron has a knack for making populist entertainment and he has made two greatest sequels ever made, Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. They serve as models on how to continue a story and build upon a world. Cameron could have done the same with Avatar: The Way of Water since Pandora was a rich world filled with different landscapes and cultures.

However, Avatar: The Way of Water was a disappointment because it felt like a repeat of the first film. The Way of Water had the same threat as the first film, it even had the same villain despite the fact he was killed in the first film, and Avatar and The Way of Water had the same themes of environmentalism and spiritualism. This repetition was most blatant when the Scullys moved to the islands.

The family had to adapt to a new environment and learn the culture and skills of their host. There were repeated stories. In The Way of Water Jake’s second oldest son, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) developed a romantic connection with the chief’s daughter, Tsireya (Bailey Bass), and had a rivalry with an important member of the tribe. Lo’ak had a connection with a unique creature that showed he was special. Lo’ak had the same character journey as his dad.

Scenes in The Way of Water seem the same as its predecessor. The destruction of a village and the death of a tulkun, a whale-like creature, were like the destruction of the Hometree in Avatar because they were devastating events for Na’vi.  The reason for the Sky People hunting the tulkun was the same as the destruction of the Hometree, they wanted rare natural resources. It was a shame that The Way of Avatar was a retreat because of Cameron’s work on the previous sequels. All this repetition and the three-hour-long run time made The Way of the Water a slog to sit through.

The Way of Water felt like The Matrix Reloaded. Both were sequels to popular films and aimed to be bigger and better. Both films also brought back popular villains even though they died previously. The Way of Water’s reason for being back Quaritch was forced because he had saved his memories on a computer and they were transferred into a Na’vi body. The Way of Water was made simultaneously with Avatar 3, like The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions and because of this The Way of Water was setting up the sequels. The biggest evidence of this was Kate Winslet because she had a minor role but she is set to be a bigger role in the sequels.

The first act was the strongest part of the film. This was more action ordinated as Scully led the resistance against the Sky People and faced off against Quaritch and his platoon. It moved at a blistering pace and there was a strong character moment when Quaritch finds his human body. One thing Cameron never fails at was visual spectacle and The Way of Water was filled with it, whilst it was showing the creatures of the deep or the big action climax.

I watched The Way of Water in its 3D 48 frames-pre-second. This was a weird experience because the high frame rate and the large amount of visual effects made the film look more like a video game. It felt like watching Halo on the big screen. This was particularly noticeable during the action sequences. It was a distraction. Peter Jackson used this format when he made The Hobbit trilogy and it failed to take off back then. I doubt The Way of Water will propel this format.

The Way of Water was a letdown. It was just a repeat of the first Avatar film and no amount of visual splendour was enough to enthrall audiences.