Avatar: The Way of Water
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoey Saldana and Stephen Lang
Rated M
4/5
Avatar: The Way of Water is a thrilling visual spectacle full of heart from dependable director James Cameron, but its screenplay falls short of its special effects.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a chief of the Na’vi people on the alien world Pandora, must protect his family from a new human invasion and a vendetta from old enemy General Quaritch (Stephen Lang).
Like the first Avatar from 2009, The Way of Water is a staggeringly beautiful film, portraying a lush, vibrant ecosystem with astonishing CGI. The expressions, lighting, motion and detail are exceptional, and the immersion rarely ever falters. The action sequences are tense and frantic but easy to follow, and the final battle makes great use of a perilous single location.
Jake has a bittersweet arc with his family, as he learns to be a father rather than a squad leader and fights to protect them even as he tries to abandon war. The film’s surprising emotional through-line comes from a Tulkun alien whale: the humans on Pandora run a brutal whaling operation, and Jake’s son Lo’ak’s well-paced bond with one whale provides an effective bridge between Jake’s survival narrative and the broader invasion.
Despite its resplendent visuals and deep emotional core, The Way of Water is somewhat shallow, with not enough plot to fill its daunting 192-minute runtime.
The supporting characters are underwritten: Quaritch’s squadmates feel copy-pasted from Aliens, I had trouble telling Jake’s sons apart, and the Metkayina ocean clan with whom the Sully family take refuge is a thinly-sketched Maori pastiche. The motive for the whaling operation is wafer-thin, and Quaritch’s vendetta fades into the background in the sluggish second act.
An exciting, affecting and visually stunning adventure offset by sloppy storytelling and excessive length, Avatar: The Way of Water is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
