Avatar: The Way of Water
Like its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water isn’t a movie — it’s a technology showcase.
Once again, co-writer/director James Cameron has some of the most sophisticated filmmaking techniques at his disposal, and he uses them to tell yet another emotionally-stunted tale filled with clichés and lazily-sketched characters.
But it looks pretty — well, sort of. Even in 3D and at 48fps, the daytime scenes in the Pandora forests where former human Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his mate Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their Na’vi family have carved out a peaceful existence resemble an expensive video game, though occasionally moments of natural wonder bloom.
Perhaps appropriately, that beauty is dialed back once the “sky people” (aka humans) return to the planet and resume plans to turn it into a replacement for their dying Earth. Jake quickly becomes their primary headache, leading successful raids to disrupt their progress. So how do Cameron and fellow screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver counteract this threat?
In a forehead-slapping decision, the team resurrects Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the villain from Avatar, and his likewise deceased squad of Aliens-knockoff Marines as Na’vi in hopes that they’ll be able to operate undetected by Indigenous protections and eliminate Jake.
And so, The Way of Water becomes a rehash of Avatar, albeit in the new setting of the Metkayina clan’s seaside kingdom, where the Sullys seek refuge once it’s clear that staying put in their forest home would put that community at risk.
Bizarrely convinced that the Sullys’ troubles won’t follow them to their village, tribal leaders Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his spiritual leader mate Ronal (Kate Winslet) welcome their fellow Na’vi and instantly get to work teaching them the, well, ways of water. What follows is a cycle of predictable sequences where the Sully children cause problems, then get chastised back at the village, interspersed with snippets of neat aquatic life that adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver, struggling to sound youthful) bonds with on an unusual level.
No time is spent with anyone in the village beyond the two families, which make it difficult to care when, after some good old-fashioned human aggression on neighboring natives and an endless hunting sequence of the whale-like nalutsa, the inevitable showdown between Quaritch and Jake arises.
Composing most of The Way of Water’s third and final hour, the battle involves countless deaths of people on the commandeered nalutsa-slaughtering ship, all of whom are deemed guilty by association, whether or not they wield a deadly weapon or possess such ill intent. (Cue the “Death Star contractors” scene from Clerks.) With no investment to be had in these proceedings, the senseless carnage adds up shockingly fast, and when one especially despicable character meets his end, good luck suppressing an intense eye-roll.
By contrast, the demise of one central Na’vi — apparently they can’t all survive — is meant to elicit a deep emotional response. Yet such a reaction is as unearned as the climactic decisions surrounding Spider (Jack Champion), the wildling human all but adopted by the Sullys who just so happens to be Quaritch’s son.
As for the purported groundbreaking cinematic experience that The Way of Water promises — sure, multiple nighttime shots in the home stretch when characters float atop the ocean’s surface are fascinating in their balance of shadow, light, and water. But occasional visual brilliance doesn’t come close to compensating for the surrounding numbskullery.
Somehow, there are three (?!?) more of these installments en route over the next six years. However, after The Way of Water, there’s no reason to return to Pandora.
Grade: D-plus. Rated PG-13. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Asheville Pizza & Brewing Co., Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: 20th Century Studios)
