‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’ Movie Review: James Cameron Does It Again, Creates Another Visual Spectacle

‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’: Cast & Crew

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet

Available In: Theatres

Duration: 3 Hours 12 Minutes

‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’: Story

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have formed a family and are doing everything to stay together. However, they must leave their home and explore the other regions of Pandora. This time they leave the forest and the Omaticaya clan and head out to the ocean to the Metkayina clan. When an ancient threat resurfaces, Jake must fight a difficult war against the humans. Will he be able to survive the war this time? Will he be able to protect every member of his family? Will the Metkayina clan unnecessarily get caught up in the war between the humans and the Omaticaya? Well, for all of that you’ll have to watch ‘Avatar 2’.

‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’: Performances

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña aren’t the leaders of the pack this time. The entire story may be revolving around them, but they’re definitely not the ones who got the entirety of the attention. While Worthington still has a good enough screen time, Saldaña is barely there. In the first part, she had a prominent character and came out strong as a feministic woman. Sadly, this time over, even though she is there throughout, she doesn’t have that intensity that she had in the first instalment. Both of them didn’t have the aggression that they had in the first part. They were constantly apologising for their kids' behaviour and that felt quite unlike their attitude in the previous part of the movie.

Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet as the leaders of the Metkayina clan seemed much stronger, and I am not talking just about their physical characteristics, but in the way, they presented their thoughts and stood tall in order to protect their clan, they came out far stronger than Worthington and Saldaña.

Among the kids, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri walks away with the lion’s share of the praises. The innocence that she has managed to bring to the character in the way she interacts with others, and even performs the stunts, is very nicely brought forth.

Stephen Lang once again comes up with the best performance of the lot. His aggression, his physicality and his anger towards Worthington’s character are so fantastically brought out onscreen. He surely is the one to watch out for once again. There is one scene where he crushes a skull with his bare hands and that gives you a little insight into how much he has put into getting the character to that level of antagonism.

The rest of the supporting cast is decent enough in their little screen time.

‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’: Script, Direction & Technical Aspects

James Cameron’s mastery over the field of VFX and how to create fantasy fiction, amalgamate it with current-day problems of the world and also keep every frame entertaining as hell is sheer sorcery. The way he has shown the underwater scenes makes you feel like you’re actually underwater and swimming with the characters.

If you’ve to pinpoint something in this film, it’s the writing that’s slightly the weak point. The writing by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno is filled with family bonding, emotions, tragedy, action and drama, but it doesn’t have the kind of variety that the first ‘Avatar’ movie had. The character of Zoe Saldaña had more to do in the first part. The bonding of all the characters with Eywa, with the flying creatures, the jungle animals, etc was far more pronounced in the first part. This part relies heavily on the visual aspects much more than the dialogues. Also, the human characters were much more in the previous part, which was really less in this one. To add to that, there are some plot points that have been absolutely forgotten in the middle of the film. Like there is hardly any mention of unobtanium mining, which was the root cause of the humans landing on pandora. Also, once the story goes to the Metkayina clan, the Omaticaya is completely forgotten, and there is hardly any mention of them or their troubles with the humans. Hopefully, the next parts will clarify these plot points.

Russell Carpenter’s cinematography is the best thing about the sequel. He takes the visual experience a notch higher than the first part with some of the most breathtaking underwater sequences. Some of the sequences look so beautiful that they look like a painting, and you’re left wondering how would he have shot the scene. Watching the film in Screen X or MX4D theatres gives you much more detailed insights into how gorgeous the entire presentation has been done by Russell Carpenter.

Simon Franglen’s background score and music create the much-needed mesmerising atmosphere for the film. From creating the minute sounds of the water splashes to the sounds of the fly fishes diving into the water, every sound has been so meticulously captured, that you’re left in awe.

Stephen E. Rivkin, David Brenner, John Refoua and James Cameron’s editing also needs to be lauded. In a time when people have the attention span of a Tiktok video, they’ve managed to not shorten the film’s length, and show a 3-hour 12-minute presentation and not a single moment goes by when it feels like there is a dip in the energy of the film. Seeing it on MX4D, I noticed that without any intervals in the middle, people sat through the entire film without walking out for a loo-break even once. That’s how taut and engaging the film was.

‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’: Can Kids Watch It?

Yes

Outlook’s Verdict

Leave everything and go watch ‘Avatar – The Way Of Water’, preferably on a Screen X or MX4D theatre. Watch it just for the fantastic visuals. I am going with 4.5 stars.