MOVIE REVIEW: AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (2022)
Sixteen years after the events of the first film and assimilating into the indigenous culture, Jake Sulley (Sam Worthington) is the chief of his wife’s (Zoe Saldaña) Na’vi clan. They have two sons and a daughter of their own, and an adopted daughter by way of Dr. Grace Augustine’s avatar. While most of the humans were forced to leave after the Na’vi victory years ago, some benevolent humans (mostly scientists) remain, including a young boy nicknamed Spider, who grows up as a friend and playmate of Sulley’s children.
Humans from the same corporation return to Pandora with the intent to subdue the natives and colonize the planet. Their military leadership includes an avatar infused with both the DNA and memories of Mile Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Hellbent on revenge, he pursues Jake and his family, forcing them to leave their clan and seek shelter with a clan who live by the sea far to the east. That doesn’t stop Quaritch or the rest of the humans, who wreak havoc on the water Na’vi clan’s ecosystem and their sacred bond with it.
For a review that requires a two-paragraph summary to set the stage, there’s actually not a lot of substance beyond what I already wrote. In many ways, the plot of The Way of Water is very similar to that of its predecessor: humans are bad and want to exploit Pandora’s natural resources for their own gain, Jake Sulley has to win over the wary locals, and a big battle looms that will determine the fate of Pandora. If I want to be cynical about it, it’s as if James Cameron couldn’t come up with an original story for his sequel, so he jettisons the main characters to a new location and tells the same approximate story over again. The stakes are a little higher this time because of the Sulley children, but that only disguises the rehash factor so much.
I saw the first film in 3D in theaters, but I waited to watch this one at home in 4K. I can imagine how much more immersive the visual effects are given the underwater scenes, but I still hold the opinion that 3D is just an add-on, rather than essential to the storytelling. Unless there is a compelling reason to put you into the world of the film to tell the story, then it is just an additional special effect.
Cameron spent years waiting for technology to catch up to his vision for this film, but I felt that it strayed right up to the edge of the uncanny valley at times. Too often, my brain was trying to determine how much of what I was watching was done with practical effects and how much was computer generated. I know that most of the actors performed on set for motion-capture, which tracks movements and facial expressions for the end-result digital overlay for the Na’vi characters, but with this film in particular, the bouncing back and forth between photorealistic CGI sequences and actual flesh-and-blood practical-effects sequences becomes difficult for my brain to reconcile. During the underwater sequences, it’s easy to forget that some of what we’re seeing is rooted in human performance and just assume that we’re watching a fully computer animated film. But then suddenly that notion is broken by non-CGI elements and it almost feels like an intrusion.
The practical and the CGI live together on screen better than in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, but there are times where it doesn’t seem like the two are quite sharing the same space in perfect harmony. Maybe the lopsided blend violates something in my brain. With so much being CGI, why not make the whole film that way? Or else, why not try to balance the two more? My brain tells me that CGI is ‘easier’ for filmmakers to use, because the possibilities are all but limitless, and I think that this is one of the chief reasons that I can’t enjoy these movies as much as others do.
With that in mind, I will pose this question- are the technological underpinnings of Cameron’s Avatar universe the future of AI-generated content? Cameron has his actors suited up with golf balls on their motion capture suits and dots on their faces to act as reference points for recreating the digital characters in post-production. Once AI studies enough of the technique and analyzes enough human facial expressions and body movement, will everything wind up looking like Avatar? I hope not. There is something vital about seeing real people doing real things in real space.
Fans of the series are right to be pleased with the visuals- they are impressive and rich in detail. But what about the flaws? If not for the revenge bit and Spider’s daddy issues, this would be the exact same story as the first film. Even then, the characters pass on several opportunities to kill the bad guy- the same bad guy from the first movie- which makes me think that he will continue to be the bad guy going forward, which only sets up more déjà vu for Cameron to use as a narrative crutch while he plays in his visual effects sandbox. The environmental message is still loud and out front, except where the first film’s credo could be ‘save the trees,’ this installment preaches ‘save the whales.’ Perhaps, like Star Trek: The Voyage Home, Avatar: The Way of Water will come to be distinguished from the rest of the future sequels as ‘the one with the whales.’
As I realize that this review has run on long enough, I am reminded of the film’s almost excruciating runtime. Cameron overindulges in world-building. It’s beautiful, yes, but the film trudges along at a sloth-like pace at times in order to showcase interludes of the splendor of Pandora’s environs. If the script were stronger, it might justify such indulgence, but that is not the case. Cameron was patient for technology to advance to his needs for this film, but maybe he should have workshopped his script a few times in that same span.
FINAL RATING: 3 out of 5
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