A work of blockbuster auteurism, Avatar: The Way of Water wildly, weirdly expends massive resources on a vision at once generic and bizarrely idiosyncratic, for better and for worse. Think George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels or Wachowski sibling efforts such as Jupiter Ascending and Cloud Atlas. So yes, mileage may very much vary.
In following up 2009’s massively successful Avatar, director James Cameron expands on that film’s wondrous world-building in dazzling ways. Now full Na’vi, former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has built a family life with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and four children. They live in relative peace amidst the wilds of Pandora, at least until the “Sky People” return—among them a Na’vi avatar who has been imbued with the memories of Stephen Lang’s Quaritch, the main villain from the first film. Because this Quaritch retains a personal grudge against Jake, the Sullys flee to start a new life with an ocean-dwelling clan in another region of Pandora.
As with Avatar, there are intriguing ideas at play—including what family lineage might mean in a reality like this—but neither story nor characterization is the film’s strong point. Rather, once again, it’s that world-building, especially the astonishing clarity of the underwater scenes, which are teeming with creatures great and small. My favorite visual is the giant seaweed air bladder that some of Jake’s kids, while fleeing bad guys, swim into, hiding in the soft glow of its air pocket, which has created a peaceful pool. It’s an oasis within the bombastic action, which Cameron handles throughout with expected aplomb.
The Way of Water suffers, however, from doubling down on Jake Sully as the focus of this story. Avatar ended with Jake leaving his human form behind to fully become Na’vi, suggesting that this mercenary—sent to the planet to assist in its pillaging—had come to realize that there might be a more harmonious way to live. But when we meet him in The Way of Water, he’s sporting human military gear and running his family like a squadron. (He barks “Sullys, fall in!” and makes his sons, notably not his daughters, call him “sir.”) Rather than subsuming himself into the Na’vi culture, Jake is still invading. For all Cameron’s gestures toward holistic community, he just can’t quit his grunts and guns.
(A note on the format: I saw this in 3D, projected to mimic frame rates of both 48 frames-per-second and the more traditional 24 fps. I wouldn’t recommend the experience. The use of 3D worked well with the first Avatar, but combining it with the manipulated frame rate here brought back bad memories of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, another exercise in blockbuster auteurism.)
(12/13/2022)
