They say every movie is a miracle. Just to get financed, shot, edited, and released, a film needs some kind of an angel on its shoulder to reach an audience. Well, every shot of Avatar: The Way of Water is a miracle. It’s brimming with invention and eye-popping imagery. I’m sure director James Cameron and his team had to work overtime to fill the screen with such an array of technical wizardry. You can almost forgive them for not giving the script at least one more pass.
The Way of Water finds Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) living among Na’vi and raising a family on the world of Pandora. Naturally, those pesky humans return to the planet hoping to colonize it, and basically declaring war on the natives in the process. To make matters worse, the evil Quaritch (Stephen Lang) has been resurrected in Na’vi form in a younger, hungrier version, and he’s looking to avenge his former human self. He chases Jake and his family from their forest home, and they seek refuge in an isolated fishing village where they must become accustomed to a new underwater way of life. When Quaritch takes Jake’s kids hostage, the tribe comes together to make their final stand.
There are plenty of unique touches here. I loved the fact they brought Sigourney Weaver back and had her play her own teenage alien daughter. (It makes sense when you see it.) I dug the robo-crab soldier guys too. Visually, it’s a knockout, but it’s lacking a little something in the character development department. Maybe I need to give it a second viewing as the initial watch is a rather overstimulating experience. Still, at well over three hours, I can’t see that happening anytime soon (especially when I have tons of movies on my shelf that need to be watched this month).
The underwater scenes look especially breathtaking, even if some of the characters resemble Sea Monkeys on steroids. Sure, there are some cheesy moments here and there (like when the movie becomes Free Willy 3000). The goofiest scene is when a space whale has a flashback. I kid you not. Not since the dog flashback in The Hills Have Eyes 2 have we seen something this goofy. I kinda loved it.
I also thought it was thematically interesting in that both the villain and heroes have family that aren’t wholly of their own species. The message is that it’s not so much what a family looks like, it’s how they stick together that counts. While even that’s a little on the nose, it still works.
Did it need to be over three hours long? Hell no! Then again, YOU try telling the King of the World to trim his movie's running time back, especially when he’s been futzing with it for over a decade.
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