A One Mann’s Movies review of “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022).
With a 13 year gap from the original “Avatar” and a reported $250M budget, James Cameron is taking a huge financial gamble on “Avatar: The Way of Water”. But it’s more the bum-numbing running time that will put most people off seeing this one.
Bob the Movie Man Rating(s):
Plot Summary:
Many years have passed since Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) routed the ‘Sky People’ and shacked up, in his permanent Avatar form, with Neyrita (Zoe Saldana). Now with four beautiful children, Sully has the contented life he never thought, as a ‘jarhead’, he would ever have. But nothing lasts forever, and lights in the sky signal the return of the deadly forces, intent on finding and killing the troublesome rebel leader.
Certification:
UK: 12; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC: “Moderate violence, threat, injury detail, infrequent strong language”).
Talent:
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang.
Directed by: James Cameron.
Written by: James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver.
Twitter Handles: #officialavatar, #AvatarTheWayOfWater.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” Review:
Positives:
- It’s an astonishingly beautiful film to look at. The film was shot with a high frame-rate and it makes for a remarkably crisp and vivid image, well suiting the Pandora setting. There are some visuals which just made me gasp with amazement. (I’m sure the 3D is also top-notch, but the cinema I saw this in was only showing the 2D version).
- The visuals and special effects are impressive. But I was also mightily impressed by the sound mix of the movie. When the “Sky People” ships decellerated into the atmosphere the sound design made the hairs on my neck stand up. (I chose to ignore my scientist head telling me that there is no sound in space!) And the sound mix throughout the film continued to impress. I’d be amazed if this doesn’t get the sound award at the Oscars. And since it broke new ground for the use of motion-capture effects underwater, I’d have thought this was a shoo-in for the Special Effects Oscar too.
- While the script randomly shoehorns in two unexpected births (see below), it does at least makes good use of these within the story to ramp up some of the emotion in the scenes.
- As for the first film, it’s the action scenes where the movie really gets into its top-gear. They are spectacular and exciting (with more than a passing nod to some classic Vietnam war films). Although, it makes you think that the designers of the flying helicopter gunships REALLY should have thought by now about making the cockpit windows out of toughened glass!
Negatives:
- ‘The Way of Water’ is said to “have no beginning and no end”. Well, I confirm that the movie had a beginning, but at times it felt bloody endless. The middle third of the film, in particular, gets bogged down (pun intended) in the glory of its watery visuals. The story here creeps along at a snail’s pace. If you follow this blog regularly, you’ll know that I prefer movies to last no more than 100 minutes…120 at a push. This movie clocks in at 8 minutes short of 200 minutes, which is ridiculous. Cameron needed to take at least 50 minutes out of this, imho. You CAN have too much of a good thing, and this run time will actively put people off seeing the movie. (My daughter being a case in point…. direct quote: “THREE HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES??? I am NEVER going to see that”).
- For such a high-profile film, the script is clunky in places.
- Some of the dialogue is of the “Quick..run” variety, which is both superfluous and distracting.
- You will remember that at the end of the last movie we saw Quaritch (Stephen Lang’s character) turned into a kebab by Neyrita. And his ressurection here beggars belief.
- And where exactly the two kids – Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and ‘Spider’ (an effective Jack Champion) – came from is not, as yet, credibly explained.
- I just didn’t ‘get’ some of the story. At one point Sully is stabbed in the chest with a big knife because “the leader must die before a new one can take over”…. but he is unaffected!
- But there’s a plot point still more heinous in my eyes. The mineral ‘Unobtanium’ (yuk!) was deemed “the most valuable material in the universe” in the last film, but here it isn’t referenced at all! Instead there is some new ‘Holy Grail’ nonsense in the form of ‘Amrita’. Which – you’ve guessed it – is now suddenly “the most valuable material in the universe”. Sigh.
Summary Thoughts on “Avatar: The Way of Water”
I find it irritating that a lot of sniffy critics have had a good go at rubbishing this movie, giving it one and two stars out of five. Criticism that it is a “rinse and repeat” of the first film are not very fair, in my opinion: the story evolves in a different direction and becomes more personal and relationship based, which is a good thing. And I personally don’t think you can justifiably give an epic movie that looks THIS good on the big screen and deploys such fabulous technical film-making prowess less than 3 stars.
But, that being said, it has some significant faults. There were moments in the middle of the film when I was looking at my watch and mentally shouting “COME ON!” at Cameron. A classic sequel is buried somewhere in here. But this leisurely and over-indulgent cut of the film isn’t it.
Trailer for “Avatar: The Way of Water”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9MyW72ELq0 .
I’m afraid that I’m on the side of the sniffy critics here. I did not like this film. I was bored. It looks good, but it left me wanting to hire an editor for James Cameron. And a writer! I did like the original Avatar film, even saw it twice.
I should also say that I didn’t see it in 3D as it was only in Japanese in 3D at my local cinema.
My husband did enjoy it though, so I’m glad I didn’t make him sit through a 3 hour+ movie that he didn’t like!
Thanks Helen for commenting. How many stars out of 5 would you give it? My only issue with critics giving it 1* or 2*s is just that for such a technical achievement in film-making you have to applaud the effort that’s gone into making it look so wonderful. But I’m with you on the “hiring an editor”. I thought the multi-layered story, with the family relationships, was quite interesting though (and would have been good if an hour shorter!). Note that I said I don’t think critics who love film should give this less than 3*’s… but I only gave… Read more »
On Letterboxd I gave it 2 out of 5. If I had felt entertained I probably would have given it a higher score, but it felt self-indulgent! I have a strange relationship with James Cameron’s films, I only seem to like about half of them. He did all the technical stuff in the first Avatar…is this one so much improved? I didn’t think so really. The story should have been better. I grew up watching British Sci-fi where the effects are pretty shoddy, but the stories are good/fun…yet, I accepted them because I cared about the characters and the plots.… Read more »
Thanks again for commenting. Would be boring if we agreed about everthing! I can understand your viewpoint, and I agree with you re the plot. I think with the technical mastery on show (I think it did go beyond the first: special effects work in water is phenomenally hard) tbis SHOULD have been a 5* slam-dunk… but wasn’t.