This story incorporates main spoilers for the movie Avatar: The Way of Water.
Avatar: The Way of Water, like every good world-building sequel, introduces a deluge of latest components to its extraterrestrial setting of Pandora. There are totally different places to go to, corresponding to the house of the Metkayina, a reef-dwelling clan. There are unusual species to fulfill, such because the whalelike tulkun. And there are unfamiliar characters to get to know, together with the youngsters of Jake Sully (performed by Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), the protagonists whose romance was chronicled in 2009’s Avatar.
But one contemporary face has induced extra cringes than cheers. Miles Socorro (Jack Champion), a white child who sports activities dreadlocks and goes by the nickname “Spider,” isn’t a Sully by blood, however he tries fairly onerous to be. Left behind as a child on Pandora, he was unable to return to Earth as a result of he was too small to outlive the journey. Now a youngster, he wears solely a loincloth and paints blue stripes on his pores and skin to look extra just like the native Na’vi. He speaks the language, growls loads, and indulges in juvenile antics, scampering onto lab tools and annoying as many characters—alien and human alike—as he can. Jake considers him a “stray cat”; Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), Jake and Neytiri’s adopted daughter with a mysterious origin, calls him “monkey boy.” He’s principally Pandora’s Chet Hanks—or a pint-size Tarzan, if you wish to be extra charitable.
Yet, as goofy as he could also be, Spider is a necessary addition to the franchise. Really. In some methods, he’s the brand new Jake, a human caught up within the Na’vi world. But Spider has no avatar—a genetically engineered hybrid physique used to freely roam Pandora—so he should navigate his habitat with an oxygen masks, at all times at a drawback in contrast together with his blue pals. He’s additionally revealed to be the organic son of Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the hateful villain from the primary movie who sought to destroy Pandora and who’s resurrected for the sequel in a brand new, upgraded avatar kind. Spider thus exists in a nebulous area relating to his identification. He’s the offspring of the worst of mankind and needs to withstand his background, but he can not utterly take part within the tradition he admires and, within the case of his crush on Kiri, adores. He’s in contrast to anyone else in The Way of Water, and, as such, he makes the movie’s story as attention-grabbing to look at because the spectacle the director James Cameron spent so lengthy fine-tuning.
Consider what Spider does within the ultimate hour of the movie, when he saves Quaritch’s life—after which rejects the person’s supply to affix him. The first choice has in all probability contributed to Spider’s unpopularity, however each decisions deepen the emotional stakes. Like the primary Avatar, The Way of Water is partly about how people can’t assist however lay waste to pure wonders; in contrast to its predecessor, nonetheless, it’s additionally all for observing the dynamics of discovered households. Although he feels a pull to rescue his organic father, Spider refuses to depart the Sullys behind. His presence makes each Quaritch and the Sullys extra fascinating to observe: Quaritch is gutted when Spider turns him down, and the Sullys will ultimately must course of what Spider did. Besides, Spider appears not sure of his personal motives. Perhaps he recovered Quaritch out of pity. Perhaps his upbringing with the Na’vi taught him to worth life in any respect prices.
Or maybe he’s starting to see that Pandora shouldn’t be paradise, irrespective of who’s in management. Spider is a naive teenager enamored with a tradition he solely thinks he understands, and who’s in determined want of rising up. In the ultimate showdown between Quaritch and the Sullys, he appears to do exactly that. During the combat, Spider turns into an observer—too small to deal a lot harm, however shut sufficient to select up on how harmful the Sullys may be, most of all Neytiri. In one scene, Cameron trains the digital camera on Spider’s face, permitting us to look at how Spider’s perspective of her shifts: He goes from being in awe of her means to being scared by her depth. When she threatens his life in order that Quaritch will let go of her youngster, one thing in Spider’s regard for her breaks.
That doesn’t imply his angle towards the Na’vi adjustments completely. The Way of Water ends earlier than it may possibly discover the aftermath of Jake and Quaritch’s battle, however the movie provides hints of the private stakes to come back for these characters. The first Avatar labored so properly as a result of its eye-popping visuals had been paired with acquainted, even predictable storytelling beats. In Spider, Cameron has created somebody with the potential to assist preserve that steadiness via the sequels. His development might yield both a hero’s journey or a flip towards darkness—or possibly one thing in between, particularly if his curiosity in Kiri blossoms into one thing extra.
Of course, I can’t in good conscience totally defend a personality whose vibe is, as my colleague David Sims put it in his overview, “a little questionable.” But as grating as Spider may be, and as repetitive and petulant as his dialogue will get, I noticed him as a secret weapon—on the very least for displaying off the movie’s results. Scenes involving him, a personality carried out with out using motion-capture expertise, look seamless regardless of how a lot he interacts with the Na’vi. In the tip, Spider is maybe the proper supporting character for a film like The Way of Water. Like the waves lapping the Metkayina’s shores, he’s in a position to subtly polish the story and the sights.