The Real Deal
Never bet against James Cameron.
Avatar: The Way of Water
Director: James Cameron • Writers: James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Kate Winslet, Bailey Bass, Britain Dalton, Jake Champion, Jemaine Clement, Edie Falco
USA • 3hrs 13mins
Opens Hong Kong December 15 • IIA
Grade: B+
We’ve come full circle. Back in 2009, iSquare opened its UA Cinema (RIP) with an IMAX house with Avatar, James Cameron’s 3D extravaganza that everyone laughed at. But then, as now, history dictates that it’s unwise to bet against Cameron when he decides he’s going to revolutionise the film industry. He fired the agent who advised him against developing The Terminator. He gave Fox executives conniption fits over Titanic’s budget and run time excesses. For all intents and purposes he invented a camera for Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days and a new type of motion capture photography for Avatar that he demoed for Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and George Lucas. He might be an asshole (actor Ed Harris claims Cameron almost drowned him shooting The Abyss) but there’s no denying his ability to realise a vision. Aliens remains one of the best sequels ever, plus it gave us “Game over!”
Yes, the Na’vi of Avatar got referred to as Smurfs. Yes it’s a white saviour story. Sure it’s an on-the-nose environmental screed and rehash of indigenous genocides. But Avatar also didn’t pull its punches: a culture was eradicated, a people displaced, and a forest burnt. It wasn’t all happy happy overjoy. Then it went on to make US$2.92 billion (not adjusted for inflation). It’s still #1, two spots ahead of… checks notes… Titanic. So go ahead and laugh at Avatar: The Way of Water, the first of four (!) sequels, budgeted at a rumoured US$350 million. Is it going to top the original in earnings? Probably not, but it’s a very different business and a very different world now. Still. I’m not fuckin’ with Cameron’s track record.
The water is fine
Let’s recap, shall we: 13 years ago, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, still a bit bland), a Marine with a questionable American accent and a catastrophic injury that made him a paraplegic, was sent to Pandora to occupy an avatar of a native Na’vi and make contact with hostile natives who most definitely did not want a bunch of arrogant, entitled Earthers raiding their planet of its natural resources. The Earthers went full military anyway, and made a right mess until Jakesully and Na’vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) rallied the troops and sent the Earthers packing. Jakesully died after a boss fight with the pro-colony racist military commander, Miles Quaritch (the always awesome Stephen Lang), but the trees put his consciousness into the avatar. It’s silly. So what?
Avatar was a technical masterstroke, and essentially ushered in a 3D era (again, $3 billion) that never lived up to the hype – mostly because no other filmmakers took the holistic approach Cameron did. Studios took the cheap and easy way out – post-production conversion – and pissed off consumers fast. COVID looked to be the nail in the 3D coffin, and we were all happier for it.
But here comes Cameron again, and he’s doubling down. On the tech, on the environmental messaging (his ocean boner is raging), on spectacle. Avatar: The Way of Water has the same flaws as the first film (a lot of the creaky dialogue consists of “Go, go, go!”), and the film’s pivot towards a more sentimental, family-based narrative, which admittedly has its strong points, can be facile. Oh look, surly teens! Ah, an underachieving son who wants dad’s approval! Newt! But where so many other films get overwhelmed by their CGI, Cameron knows exactly how to harness it as a storytelling tool. This really is his sandbox. And so we get unintrusive CGI, IMAX, immersive 3D and High Dynamic Range (48 frames per second), which not even Peter Jackson (The Hobbit) and Ang Lee (Gemini Man) could wrestle into submission. Does it look a bit like a glorified video game? Maybe. Is it just high end animation? Possibly. But there’s no denying the sheer imagination and shocking level of detail and world-building on display, which (and I hate to say this) deserves a 3D IMAX screen.
More human behaviour
He’s coming for you
The story is very nearly secondary, which is just as well, because Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver have concocted a hoary ecological cautionary tale of revenge and injustice, with all the markers nicely laid out for parts three to five. Years after the Earthers (Sky People) left Pandora Jakesully and Neytiri live happily with their brood, sons Neteyam and Lo'ak (Jamie Flatters and Britain Dalton), daughter Newt Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and adopted kids Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), the offspring of Grace’s avatar (don’t ask), and the abandoned human Spider (Jack Champion). Gee, I wonder if he’ll be conflicted enough to drive part three? Anyway, all is fine until the Sky People return, this time to colonise for a dying homeworld and start razing shit to the ground. The Sullys go into exile because lookie here. Quaritch is back with a marine platoon of avatars to even the odds – and kick Sully’s ass. They take refuge with the vaguely Pacific Island Metkayina reef clan – who are green and webby – led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife Ronal (Kate Winslet), who reluctantly take them in and show them “Water has no beginning and no end.” Of course, they join forces when Quaritch and his goons come calling.
Avatar: The Way of Water takes its sweet time unspooling, and demands we let ourselves be enveloped by the reefs and corals and caves and waves of what is as much an unabashed CTA for ocean conservation as it is an action yarn about black hats and white hats. Some will bristle at the relatively slow pace of Act 2, when the Sully kids deal with being outsiders and “half-breeds” until they learn the way ocean ways. But DOP Russell Carpenter’s (True Lies, Ant-Man) spectacular images are allowed to just sparkle, from the luminescent undersea graveyard, to the dancing jellyfish and all the other bits that constantly move on the screen. It helps that the culture Cameron has created is engaging enough to carry us through to Act 3, when ATWoW turns into every James Cameron movie ever. That’s not really a bad thing; buddy knows his way around an action sequence. Neytiri gets to be more badass (and Saldaña manages a modicum of emotional nuance to peek though her CG make-up), the havoc is almost tactile, the choreography impeccable. Do we know where the next instalment is heading? Yes, yes we do. But even if it never happens there will always be Avatar: The Way of Water to remind us how tech makes our lives – and our movies – better. In the right hands. — DEK