Avatar: The Way Of Water review

Hey, it's really here. James Cameron finally got around to finishing and releasing what is supposed to be the first of several sequels to Avatar, his massive hit from 2009 that became the biggest global hit of all time and was responsible for all those 3D movies we were flooded with in the early 2010s. 

It's so trendy to hate on Avatar. People hate on its simple story and simple characters. I've always loved it. It was my #1 movie of 2009. Not sure if it still holds that spot, but it's up there. It's an excellent film. Its simplicity I take as an asset, not a weakness. It's not a flawless film but it's beautifully realized. It's hard to explain how incredible it was to see the visuals for the first time, with its peerless 3D. I went and saw its re-release this fall, also in 3D, and it really holds up.

Leading up to this sequel all I kept seeing was how nobody cares about this movie and that it will flop. How stupid do you have to be at this point to still doubt Cameron? 

The Way Of Water is apparently the most expensive movie ever made. Not sure if that's exactly true, cause Cameron has already shot parts of future sequels, which has to figure in. But this is a film in which every dollar is up there on screen for sure. The visual fx here are just as dazzling, and much of it taking place on or in water. Even disaffected me gasped at a few shots. 

The story again is simple. The humans have been gone from Pandora for years, aside from a few friendlies. Sam Worthington's Jake and Zoe Saldana's Neytiri now have a family.

But here come the humans again, not just to try and take the natives resources but to colonize the planet. 

Jake ends up taking his family away from the forest to seek refuge with another tribe on the planet, the "reef people" who live by the oceans.

The world of Pandora is still immersive as ever. This time however I wasn't nearly as involved in the story. A lot of it felt like a rehash of the original. Again we have Jake learning the ways of a new tribe. And again, for convoluted reasons that don't make a lot of sense, Jake is opposed by Stephen Lang's bloodthirsty meat-eating general. 

But wait, wasn't Lang killed at the end of the first movie? Yes, but you see, before all that his consciousness had been saved and implanted into an avatar back on Earth. As were some of his troops. OK. I don't know why that would be happening. So now Lang is a Na'vi himself, but still trying to wipe them out. At first I thought maybe this would be used as a vessel to have him see the error of his ways and become an ally. But no, the character is exactly the same.

Most annoyingly, he is given way more screen time than last time. Only Jake has more. They even sideline Saldana for large stretches. I was absolutely baffled at why this character was considered so crucial to be brought back at all, let alone given such a huge focus.

The film has an awful lot of characters to keep track of. Jake's kids, particularly his two sons, are interchangeable. Sigourney Weaver plays another of the kids, which has a weird explanation. Kate Winslet plays the queen of the reef people. And then she has kids. 

There's also a wholly irritating human child character named Spider, who was left behind after the events of the first movie and turns out to be Lang's son. Sure. This character does some of the dumbest things I have ever seen.

The middle third of the film is surprisingly leisurely, mostly just exploring this new environment. There's a subplot involving a whale-type creature that's pretty compelling. The film clocks in at over 3 hours and this is the part that could certainly be cut down. 

Then the last act is just one huge action sequence, Pandora vs humans. Much of it takes place on what is basically just a giant aircraft carrier. It kind of ends up being like just any other action extravaganza, whereas the original had.a unique environment for the climax. But of course Cameron is not just any other director. Aside from a few moments that self-consciously evoke his other films, Cameron can still do big scale spectacle like nobody else.

So I did like The Way Of Water, but in this case I liked it more on a pure craftsmanship level than anything else. It's not one of my favorite movies of the year.