These days in Hollywood, scale appears to be one of many best issues to realize on-screen. Breakthroughs in visual-effects know-how imply that audiences get to observe one epic battle after one other, and are accustomed to seeing dozens of superheroes zipping round pointlessly. James Cameron has all the time been a director who harnesses the newest CGI advances to whip up thrills, however with Avatar: The Way of Water, his first movie in 13 years, he faces an simple problem. Can audiences nonetheless be wowed, given the fixed torrent of wide-screen spectacle? And are there new delights to be found within the alien world of Pandora, all these years after the unique Avatar?
The reply to each is a powerful sure, which isn’t a shock contemplating Cameron’s monitor file. He has a behavior of constructing blockbusters which might be exemplars of the shape whereas additionally feeling buzzy and distinct, and he created two of the very best sequels of all time (Aliens and Terminator 2). Still, I admit I felt some trepidation in the course of the first 45 minutes of The Way of Water, that are busy with plot particulars because the movie updates the viewers on the previous decade-plus of Pandoran life. The first Avatar labored as a result of it leveraged acquainted storytelling tropes in service of awe-inspiring 3-D visuals, serving to to plunge viewers into a brand new world through a winsomely acquainted narrative. But after a sluggish begin, The Way of Water manages to repeat that system with out being a drained retread.
The story nonetheless focuses on Jake Sully (performed totally in motion-capture by Sam Worthington), a human Marine who infiltrated the civilization of Pandora’s native species, the Na’vi. The alien physique he mentally puppeteered within the first movie is now his solely bodily vessel, and within the intervening years he’s turn into an rebel warrior of some renown, preventing off human colonizers and elevating a brood of children along with his mate, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). The Way of Water’s opening act lays out the difficult net of relationships round Jake. He has three children and an adopted Na’vi daughter named Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) who’s bizarrely associated to Jake’s previous human boss, Grace Augustine (additionally Weaver), and can also be elevating a human orphan named Spider (Jack Champion), a shirtless white child with dreadlocks whose total vibe is, shall I say, just a little questionable.
That’s so much to clarify, even earlier than Cameron and his 4 co-writers clarify how the primary movie’s villainous Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) has returned, now in a Na’vi physique, to proceed humanity’s vicious colonial mission of mining Pandora’s land and searching its Indigenous species. The Way of Water solely enlarges Avatar’s refreshing skepticism in regards to the human race; virtually each character within the movie is Na’vi now, and there’s no want for a Dances With Wolves–model story arc of our hero falling in love with a brand new tradition. Instead, The Way of Water sees Jake and his household go away their life within the Pandoran forest to flee Quaritch, shifting to an oceanside group to study the way in which of, effectively, water.
The aquatic clan is led by pale-blue Na’vi performed by Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet, and they’re diplomatic however distrustful. They have flipper arms, free dive with ease, and journey winged ichthyosaurs, so Jake and his household have loads of new guidelines to study, most vital the clan’s symbiotic relationship with a sentient species of large whale known as tulkun. This is how Cameron will get to make all the things previous really feel contemporary once more, by forcing veterans like Jake and Neytiri to study new methods, and the movie’s luxurious marine environments are as bedazzling as the primary one’s floating mountains and gargantuan timber.
Cameron truly succeeds at replaying the hits with out feeling repetitive, which is spectacular provided that The Way of Water has the identical primary construction as its predecessor. The first act does all the required world-building, the second focuses on studying extra about Na’vi tradition and assembly every kind of unfamiliar beings, and an electrifying finale sees the pure world stand up towards human invasion. Most of The Way of Water’s new characters are charming (although I had some hassle telling the distinction between Jake’s two strapping sons), however as with Avatar, the true attracts listed here are the creatures and the environments, all bursting with creativeness.
But The Way of Water wouldn’t work if it didn’t nail the ending, and use that gathered scale in service of one thing genuinely jaw-dropping. Cameron is as exact a visible storyteller because it will get in terms of large-scale motion; sure, his movies take years to make, however that’s as a result of he follows not one of the uneven shortcuts employed by so many fashionable blockbusters. The closing battles in The Way of Water are rousing, however they’re additionally feats of geography, astonishing in how they handle to maintain the viewers targeted on an enormous ensemble of characters who’re leaping between numerous areas.
Action apart, one’s persistence for The Way of Water and its three-hour-plus operating time should still differ; if you don’t keep in mind the unique movie fondly, I don’t know that the sequel goes to vary your thoughts on Cameron’s achingly honest method. But though I used to be not stunned that The Way of Water’s visuals blew me away, I used to be shockingly invested within the emotional problems of the Sully household (many threads are left dangling for the already confirmed Avatar 3). Maintaining a way of stakes might be mandatory for the sequence going ahead, particularly if it plans on rolling out new entries at a faster tempo. But for The Way of Water, the decadence is greater than sufficient—for cinemas which were starved of genuine spectacle, lastly, right here’s a beautiful three-course meal of it.