Avatar: The Way of Water – now in theaters worldwide – has a gigantic task ahead of it. (And I’m not even talking about the fact that the sequel needs to make over a billion dollars at the box office to turn a profit.) James Cameron, the returning director, co-writer, co-editor and co-producer of the second Avatar Film must prove to audiences that its Pandora’s World is worth revisiting thirteen years later. The original Avatar was both a showcase for 3D cinema and otherworldly visuals. One of them is on its last legs while VFX and Scale are seemingly ubiquitous these days. Spectacle alone – Cameron had little to offer in terms of story and characters back then – cannot carry Avatar: The Way of Water. It takes more.
Additionally, the first sequel is an audition for more Avatar sequels – which are scheduled to open every second of December between now and 2028 – one of them has already filmedone who has a script availableand another with a formation of an idea. Cameron doesn’t just need you for Avatar: The Way of Water today. He needs to sell you the grand plan he’s been hatching for over a decade. But all of that is obsolete if this new chapter doesn’t work. (This is where the commercial aspects come into play more, with Cameron attempting to cover himself before release by stating that it is him ready to end on the trilogy brand should the new film underperform.)
for better or for worse, Avatar: The Way of Water is based on the model of its predecessor. It is structurally set up like the original, with an initial heavy exhibition dump, followed by an immersion in a new culture, leading to a major confrontation between humanity and the native peoples of Pandora. The finale is better than everything before it. There are even callbacks to the first film, not that they’d stand out given the huge time gap and anyone noticing avatar‘s lack of replayability. And the sequel’s visuals are paramount, with Cameron apparently pouring more VFX money into specific scenes than the overall budget bollywood movies. Avatar: The Way of Water is a mesmerizing dive into alien waters where every aspect of the new world shines with glory.
Everything you need to know about Avatar: The Way of Water
But Avatar: The Way of Water also shares some of the original’s problems. The story is razor thin, the dialogue clunky and spasmodic, the background score utterly unforgettable, and the character development downright ridiculous. Cameron paints so broadly with his subjects that one wonders if he is trying to take a global viewpoint or if he lacks the ability to be specific. (He’s mentioned in the script next to that Planet of the Apes: Prevolution Duo Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. In addition to Jaffa, Silver and Cameron, two other writers contributed to the story.) To top it all off, the return avatar Director – known for his fascination with filmmaking technology – has made a decision that threatens to undermine everything.
For reasons I can’t understand, Cameron decided to present Avatar: The Way of Water with variable framerates: standard 24fps and high framerate 48fps. Most dialogue scenes use the former, while all of the action is rendered in the latter. However, at times the Avatar sequel spontaneously switches between the two, in the same scene, which is both unnecessary and chilling. The best way I’ve found to describe it is as a budget machine struggling with a new-age video game, dropping frames in the process to maintain fidelity. Cameron believes This solves the pain point of HFR, but I’m not convinced.
A decade after the events of avatar, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are raising four children: eldest Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), second son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), adopted Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and youngest Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li bliss). A fifth, a human spider boy (Jack Champion), is also part of the group. But their family happiness is shattered when the Sky People return and set up a new massive base of operations in record time. With Jake and company a constant nuisance to humans, Commander-in-Charge General Ardmore (Edie Falco) raises old villain Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and his company from the dead by implanting their memories in Avatar bodies .
Cirkus to Avatar: The Way of Water, December’s Biggest Movies
Kate Winslet as Ronal, Cliff Curtis as Tonowari – both members of the Metkayina clan – in Avatar: The Way of Water
Photo credit: Disney/20th Century Studios
Realizing that he and his family have a goal on their backs, Jake decides they must leave their adopted home of the forest and take refuge with the Metkayina, the Reef Clan, in an archipelago. Any and all Omaticaya the Forest Clan related is discarded except Neytiri. It’s a clever reset in a way, as both the protagonists and the audience are thrown into a new world. Roughly 45 minutes after the Sullys arrive in the waters, Avatar: The Way of Water becomes a mix of exposition, oceanic wonder, and characters adapting to their new surroundings. It’s the longest second arc of its kind I’ve seen in a blockbuster film in years – although that’s partly because Cameron lacks a real plot.
Along the way, Avatar: The Way of Water tries to navigate what the sequel wants to be about. Cameron noticed that he wrote the screenplay for the first one avatar 1995, when he was barely a father. After I started the second avatar In 2012, as the father of several teenage children, he drew more of the family into the story. But intentions do not guarantee results. Cameron’s views of the family are traditional and his involvement with them is superficial. His portrayal of teenagers is nothing special: they rebel, bicker and get into trouble. Heck, they get kidnapped so many times that the film eventually leans toward self-centered humor. (That said, the movie isn’t as funny. It’s more interested in getting you excited and pushing your emotional buttons.)
Cameron’s attempts at comment are more successful. With the first film, the avatar The writer-director was sort of making a post-9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan film—in addition to drawing inspiration from a thousand other things Pocahontas to Princess Mononoke and from cyberpunk literature to Hindu gods. Avatar: The Way of Water is not built on American interventionism, whether it be the botched 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan, the failed nation-building efforts of the Bush and Obama years, or the disastrous retreat under the Biden administration .
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A tulkun, a whale-like sea creature, in Avatar: The Way of Water
Photo credit: Disney/20th Century Studios
Closest to the new avatar Film comes to make a meaningful commentary related to humanity’s attitude towards other life forms. (In Avatar: The Way of Water, the earth is said to be desolate and humanity needs a new home.) We have hunted species after species that are near extinction – some lost forever – and while conservation efforts are yielding results In recent years, scientists have warned that we are in a Sixth mass extinction driven by human activity. And Cameron outlines our inhumane practices on one IMAX Canvas, with a long, heartbreaking scene depicting the killing of a highly intelligent marine mammal.
Cameron spends so much time with these Pandora creatures that one of them becomes the “hero” in the rollicking – if at times repetitive – third act of Avatar: The Way of Water. It was the first time in a theater that I had heard an audience cheering on the action and intelligence of a sea creature on the battlefield. (Take that, Aquaman.) This crowning shot is part of the new avatar the film’s best stretch, as it moves quickly and seamlessly between surfaces, displaying a fluidity and understanding of the choreography that is oceanic’s pinnacle Black Panther: Wakanda Forever badly missed. For parts of this final spread, Cameron’s dedication to technology meets his terminator 2 heyday that swamps you in a way that’s almost enough to make you overlook the film’s flaws.
In those moments, the 48fps HFR presentation works for Avatar: The Way of Water. But although the quality of VFX has come a long way since the days of avatar – the original hasn’t aged well and watching the film today a lot of it feels wrong – there are issues. It’s virtually impossible to tell what’s real and what’s fake about Cameron’s environment. The entire film feels like CGI, be it the sky, the water, the creatures, the warships and even the characters (whose performances are based on motion capture).
Sure, it could technically be a live-action movie, but it’s more like it The Lion King reboot. Except that was rendered like a (24fps) movie. Avatar: The Way of Water is approaching a new age PS5 Game as I’m just used to seeing such smooth footage in this medium. And that feeling of watching 192 minutes of video game cutscenes is amplified by the constant changing of frame rates and Russell Carpenter’s cinematography (which uses snap zooms). So, in a way, Avatar: The Way of Water is the world’s biggest and most expensive “video feature film” of all time.
And maybe we’ll look at three more – all featuring Jake Sully versus Colonel Quaritch. Ah, Eywa.
Avatar: The Way of Water will be released worldwide on Friday, December 16th. In India the second Avatar film is available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.
