Movie Review – Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

June 22, 2023

3–5 minutes

When I think of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, I’m reminded of movies like Robinson Crusoe on Mars and Barbarella. All of them have sequences that overstay their welcome despite trying to sell audiences on images of the future and, in the case of Avatar 2, the future of CGI technology. Cameron’s heart is in the right place with the message of these movies, but The Way of Water steals so much of its plot points from the first movie and rounds off the edges making for an ultimately soulless experience.

In the original Avatar, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a human using an Avatar body to infiltrate the Na’vi as an outsider. This movie loses its human connection immediately when Jake embraces his life on Pandora and rejects his humanity. The movie tries to recreate the same struggle on a larger scale for Jake and his family when they are forced to move from the forests of Pandora to the waters. The Metkayina are a water tribe lead by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal (Kate Winslet). Yes, the way of life for these amphibious Na’vi is different but only on the surface because they too connect with the marine life via their tendril braid. Jake’s family’s biggest challenge here is learning how to swim.

This movie really boils down to the everyday life experience of Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) as parents. The real drama stems from their children. Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo’Ak (Britain Dalton) are competitive brothers trying to grow up in the shadow of their warrior father. Tuk is the adorable (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) runt, and I really wish we got to experience more of this story from her perspective. Rounding out their litter is their adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and a feral human name Spider (Jack Champion). These two are prominently featured with plot points that are sure to be expounded in later installments but are peppered throughout this movie.

The underwater sequences are the primary reason for the movie’s existence, and I heard the movie described as a very expensive screen saver. Those critics aren’t too far off with that assessment; however, Cameron gets to channel his inner Steven Spielberg when he directs a sequence involving Lo’Ak and Pandora’s shark-like species. It’s the most memorable scene in the movie.

Cameron steals another plot detail from his first movie with a legendary creature that is said to be untamable and something the people fear. Instead of an apex-predator, sky dragon, it’s a misunderstood whale like creature named Payakan. Of course, Jake’s kid is the one to bond and befriend him. I get the Metkayina not believing Lo’Ak could have bonded with Payakan but even Jake who tamed the toruk (the large red dragon beast) in the last movie doesn’t believe his kid despite doing the “impossible” himself. It really was quite a frustrating plot point.

It wouldn’t be an Avtar movie without the “Sky People.” The humans are back on a devastating scale as they attempt to colonize Pandora by force. This time they’re armed with their own Avatar strike force led by Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). The story manages to find a convoluted way to bring back the late marine. Basically, humans have found a way to conquer death by transferring a non-living entity into an Avatar body. This scientific breakthrough should be considered life changing but this movie lacks the appropriate response to an aspect that should be mind-blowing. Jake could only pilot an Avatar body and Norm (Joel David Moore) from the first movie is back doing the same thing but briefly. Yet humans have managed to take the consciousness of a deceased person and bring them back to life.

To give the humans the means to be able to navigate the oceans of Pandora, a whaling expedition is introduced in this movie. The whalers kill a mother and her calf for fluid from their brains that have stopped humans from aging. Given the technology and their tactics, the humans must have been on Pandora for longer than a year, but the movie doesn’t really acknowledge that.

In addition to borrowing from the first movie, Cameron pulls out all the stops and presents his greatest hits reel in this movie with mixed results. A bad James Cameron movie is still better than most middling movies, but this latest installment to a seemingly never-ending franchise is all wet.

Rating: 2.5/5.