Avatar: The Way of Water
James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel is a violent, calculating and visually astonishing slice of eco-sensationalism.
Blue planet: Sam Worthington and Jamie Flatters
For the Na'vi, “the way of the water has no beginning and no end.” It certainly felt like it after James Cameron’s sequel ploughed on into its fourth hour, with all guns still blazing. Having explored the beatific rainforest of the indigenous people in the first film, Cameron has moved the plot on to encompass a new realm, and a new species of Na'vi. This lot are green and have webbed hands and as they jostled and jibed with the blue Na'vi, one suspected that a futuristic West Side Story might be afoot (sing along: “I like to be in Pandora/OK, buy me in Pandora…”). Pandora is the fertile moon that is home to the Na'vi people and, more significantly, home to the invaluable mineral unobtanium. In Avatar (2009) the forces of big business stormed the planet, wreaking havoc on Pandora’s delicate ecosystem and making the natives restless. Avatar also pocketed nearly three billion dollars, making it the highest-grossing movie in history. James Cameron couldn’t make a sequel to Titanic – for obvious reasons – so here we get Avatar 2, complete with a finale that is either a homage or a complete rip-off of Cameron’s Titanic (which, until three years ago, was the second highest-grossing movie in history).
These figures make one’s head spin, while the estimated budget of $400m for the sequel could take your head clean off. The Way of Water is certainly a visual marvel, although much of it does still look cartoony. As the Na'vi take centre stage, one is lulled into the sense of experiencing a highly superior animated spectacle, so when we cut back to the forces of evil (real-life actors playing gung-ho soldiers from planet Earth), it is often a jolt. The avatar of the brutal, unscrupulous Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is now resolved to wipe the Na'vi off the face of Pandora, so that the human species can colonise the planet, having despoiled their own. And so the scenario of the Native American genocide is trotted out again, with allusions to Vietnam and Iraq thrown in for good measure. Back in 2009, with its environmental message, wheelchair-bound protagonist (Sam Worthington) and trees that communicated with each other through their roots, Avatar seemed ahead of its time, as did its extraordinary advances in CGI and motion caption technology. It’s still amazing, but the sequel is also over-long, heavy-handed, one-dimensional and manipulative. The bad guys are really, really bad and the Na'vi ever more reliant on their symbiotic reliance on Mother Nature.
One could hardly describe Avatar: The Way of Water as subtle or nuanced, or even original, as all sorts of plot devices tumble into the mix, ripped from Moby Dick and Waterworld to Finding Nemo and Platoon. Fans of the original are unlikely to be disappointed as they will be getting even more of the same, with new fantastical creatures fantastically rendered, and kinetic action scenes both aerial and aquatic. Nonetheless, the prospect of even more of all this – Avatar 5 is already in production – makes one’s heart sink.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Kate Winslet, Britain Dalton, Jamie Flatters, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Brendan Cowell, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr.
Dir James Cameron, Pro James Cameron and Jon Landau, Screenplay James Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, from a story by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno, Ph Russell Carpenter, Pro Des Dylan Cole and Ben Procter, Ed Stephen E. Rivkin, David Brenner, John Refoua and James Cameron, Music Simon Franglen, Costumes Deborah L. Scott, Sound Christopher Boyes, Dialect coach Carla Meyer.
Lightstorm Entertainment/TSG Entertainment-20th Century Fox.
192 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 16 December 2022. Cert. 12A.
