Avatar: The Way Of Water (2022) Dir: James Cameron
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13 years after the 2009 original, which became the highest grossing film of all time, comes the first of four planned sequels to director James Cameron's science fiction spectacle. I will preface this with two statements.
First of all, I honestly was not a huge fan of the first film - I found it to be very overrated. Secondly, the narrative of the first film has proved to be very problematic, with its controversial representation of colonialism and reliance on the typical "white saviour" trope being the glaring issues.
Unfortunately, this sequel falls into some of those same traps its predecessor did. That said, the colonial tones were at least somewhat reduced, if still not exactly absent. The narrative rehashes a lot of plot from the original, in a somewhat lazy attempt to create a story.
The dialogue was definitely clunky at points, but not awful, and certainly better than the original. The second act does well to establish the water-based setting, but also sees the film's biggest pacing issues.
While the huge amount of action does help the film traverse its over 3 hour runtime, there is no escaping the mental fatigue that inevitably occurs by the time the credits roll. I realise I've been very critical thus far, so I'll now refer to the film's positives.
The world-building is a huge plus, with a change of scenery, new characters and new creatures adding some extra depth to the moon of Pandora. The heartfelt and emotional core of the film, being one of family, is another huge positive. It's the best feature of the narrative.
This sequel's biggest strength is easily its cinematography. The use of colour is truly immaculate, with the obvious emphasis in blue being utilised wonderfully. The attention to detail for the film's environment is phenomenal, especially with the many ocean scenes.
Sam Worthington's protagonist has become possibly the worst character in the franchise. The lack of character development is genuinely irritating and Worthington doesn't show any on-screen charisma, making for a very disappointing performance.
On the other hand, Zoe Saldaña was the best part of the first film, and she continues in this vain, as her performance is once again a true high point here.
Sigourney Weaver returns to the franchise, although she plays a different character, and gives a good, if a little strange, performance. Her character has a huge amount of potential and I'm hoping there's a lot more to come from her.
Jamie Flatters, being one of the new characters, gives a very solid account of himself, my only criticism being that I'd like to have seen a little more of his character.
Alongside him is Britain Dalton, who I'd also very solid, and works extremely well with Flatters. He has a very intriguing development throughout the film and was one of the better characters.
Stephen Lang is another who returns, which I found rather odd. That aside, his performance itself was not a bad one - his character's writing certainly allowed for more flexibility in his acting, which was clear to see and a definite positive.
Jack Champion has a very unique role in the context of the film, but delivers very consistently - I thoroughly enjoyed his performance for the most part - with maybe a couple scenes towards the end seeing a slight dip in standard.
For the purposes of length, I will briefly mention some of the other notables who appeared; the likes of Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Bailey Bass and the iconic Kate Winslet all were particularly good, while Cliff Curtis, Filip Geljo and Edie Falco also provided some real positivity, despite having far smaller roles.
Overall, while this film is certainly a visual masterpiece, it fails to provide much in the way of true character and story evolution, beyond an admittedly much needed and appreciated change of setting. With at least one more sequel guaranteed already, I think this franchise still has some work to do to make it feel as special as it is supposed to be.
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