Let's be honest about 2009's Avatar. It was neither an epic masterpiece for the ages nor an overrated mess that has no cultural footprint. The truth lies far more in the mushy middle. The film was a game changer that took filmmaking to the next technical level but its pedantic plot and script, while well intentioned, was rather standard and struggled with its own assumptions. The film was inspiring and moving but in a rather hamfisted manner narratively while blowing us all out of the water with how it looked. It was an experience like no other at the time but had serious weaknesses in character development and plotting, and while it became a phenom for months, that lasting impact of the movie is questionable and still debated to this day, when people even talk about it.
And now we have Avatar: The Way of Water, a sequel that, despite being a long time in the making, is not nearly as far from it's predecessor as many others we've had lately. Legacy sequels of long loved movies are a dime a dozen in the 2010s and 20s. It is common in this day and age for audiences who weren't even alive when the first film came out to embrace a franchise. But it is also common to see the visual spectacle championed in the first Avatar, even at home on streaming services. And is Avatar long loved or was its moment in the sun intense but fleeting? I think the answer to that is different if you ask a North American audience or audiences from other parts of the world.
As a movie itself Avatar: The Way of Water is far more average than its predecessor. The story is a good one, but fairly cookie cutter and predictable. There isn't really a twist you won't see coming. The characters are all 2-dimensional with only two characters getting to be complicated and interesting in any way near the end (Spider and Neytiri). And I find it hard to muster up any wonder at the film's technical achievement. Does The Way of Water take film making to the "next level" as this film did? I'm not sure it translates to the audience in anyway that it does. While a spectacular looking film, and a film I understand pushed the boundaries of film making technology for today, nothing about it wowed me in the way I was wowed in 2009. I think technically I can appreciate the renderings of water and other impressive features of the film but nothing about that part of the experience moved me like other leaps of advancement in film making have moved me.
Having said all that I'm not negative on this film. I had a great time at it. Despite its length the film rarely drags, maybe only a bit in the middle of the first act which ironically feels rushed. And the third act is one long amazing battle sequence. Cameron plays to his strengths and he knows how to shoot action movies. Yes perhaps he was treading some familiar Cameron ground, aping his previous films Titanic, The Abyss, and the first Avatar, but I was oooh-ing and aaaah-ing all the way through the battle even if, as I mentioned, I kinda knew what was going to happen and wasn't ever surprised by any turn of events. It isn't hard to guess who survives and who dies and what each character is going to do in any given moment. But the film is engaging and grabs you anyway. It is damn entertaining for sure.
And the franchise's message, while blunt and overly simplistic (and perhaps a little eurocentric in its understandings), is still an important one that resonates. Avatar was and remains a celebration of the essentialism of living with our environments, no... more than that, living as part of it, being connected inherently to all. Sure it does so with an almost new-agey vibe which is likely why it puts a lot of people off. But in some ways The Way of Water handles its anti-colonialist narrative better than the first film did with less of the white saviour and noble indigenous tropes which plagued the first film (I said less... he's still stuck a bit in this mindset). So at the heart of it Avatar is giving us an important moral to the story, perhaps without any finesse and with some eye rolling moments, but it is accessible to almost any audience member.
So for me Avatar: The Way of Water is neither the greatest film of the year nor the worst. I am sure it will be a better experience on the big screen than at home. I can clearly say I enjoyed it, am not clamouring to see it again any time soon, but know I likely will enjoy it again when I do see it for a second time... or more. So much of our media dialogue is focused on binary extremes. It either has to be the very best or the very worst. We have to rank things in numerical order to make sense or our experiences of art. None of that makes sense to me. I generally liked this film and there were things about it that impressed me more or less. I'll watch it and enjoy it again and will certainly go see the next film.
Avatar: The Way of Water
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Kate Winslet, Matt Gerald, Giovanni Ribisi, Edie Falco, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Jermaine Clement, Brendan Cowell, CCH Pounder
Director: James Cameron
Writers: Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa, James Cameron
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