2022 – Avatar: The Way of Water
This was an amazing movie, and I really enjoyed watching it. It is a sequel to the 2009 film which was also nominated for Best Picture. Not only did it have a great plot which furthered the story from the first installment of the franchise, it did so in a way that didn’t fall into the trap that many sequels do. It didn’t simply rely on whatever it was that made the first movie popular, and repeated its bag of tricks. It improved on them, made them better, made them different, made them fit the story. It opened up new worlds and possibilities. It does what a good sequel is supposed to do.
Here we see what happened to the characters after the first film. Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, and his wife, Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, have had sixteen years of peace and prosperity. Jake has become chief of the Omatikaya. The couple have had three children, and have adopted one more, the child of Dr. Grace Augustine’s avatar. She is Kiri, played by Sigourney Weaver. Their other children, Neteyam, Lo’ak, and Tuk, played by young actors, Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss. Another adopted member of the family is a fully human boy named Spider, played by Jack Champion. Something I really liked about the characters and the script was that each member of the family had an important part to play in the story. They weren’t just there for no reason. They each had distinct roles and fully realized personalities.
Other new members of the cast included Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet, the chieftains of the water clan, the Metkayina, Tonowari and his wife Ronal. Their children, Tsierya and Aonung, played by Bailey Bass and Filip Geljo. And then there were the new bad guys, aka, the humans, Edie Falco, playing General Francis Ardmore, Brendan Cowell as Captain Mick Scoresby, and Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ian Garvin, a marine biologist. And they found a plausible way to bring back the main villain from the first movie, played by Stephen Lang. They took the digitally coded personality of Colonel Miles Quaritch into an avatar body. Apparently the dead Colonel was the father of Spider. Other cast members brought back to reprise their roles from the first film were Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Giovanni Ribisi, CCH Pounder, and Matt Gerald.
In other words, it was a fantastic and talented cast. As you might expect, the entire non-human cast had to work with motion capture suits and facial recognition technology, all in the unique medium of being underwater, something that has never been done before. Director James Cameron said that it took them a year and a half to crack the code, but they did it. And I have to say, it looks fantastic. We all know how water has the ability to bend light, making images distorted and constantly shifting. It seems like it would be nearly impossible to do motion capture while submerged. Those little dots on the actors’ bodies and faces would be impossible for a computer to read and map. But somehow, they perfected it. The underwater sequences were some of the most incredible images in the film. It was simply stunning.
In the first film, Cameron treated us to a tribe of forest dwellers who lived in harmony with fantastical creatures and plant life. Here, we are introduced to beautiful sea creatures that are clearly from the same planet, but evolved to an aquatic existence. There were animals that resembled whales, jellyfish, flying fish, and dolphins, not to mention plants that were like kelp, pitcher plants, and coral. And it all glowed with that same ethereal, unearthly bioluminescence. Even the design of the water tribe of the Na’vi was both similar to the ones we know, but different, physically adapted to living near the water, and being in harmony with its inhabitants. The design of everything in the film was just so detailed and perfectly planned out. It was amazing! It was just gorgeous.
But it didn’t stop there. The live action elements, the humans and their technologies was developed so cleverly. It all seemed like technology that clearly evolved from what was in the first film, even what we might have today. The tech-suits, the ships, the boats, the guns, all of it was so meticulously thought out and designed. You have to hand it to James Cameron. He always has a clear vision and the ability to bring it to the screen. He is an incredible filmmaker. It’s no wonder that many of the biggest money-making movies of all time were his.
Interesting note: per Wikipedia “…in a November 2017 interview Cameron said : “Let’s face it, if Avatar 2 and 3 don’t make enough money, there’s not going to be a 4 and 5.” Also, “According to producer Landau in February 2019… Avatar 4 and 5 “are not only greenlit, but also a third of Avatar 4 has already been filmed. So, given the returning characters, it is easy to see the inherent conflict in the plot, but there is more here. There is a strong theme of family and loyalty. There is a bit of teenage coming of age and a bit of romance. There are several fantastic action sequences, beautiful alien environments, and even a taste of spiritualism. The movie, which has a running time of three hours and twelve minutes, didn’t feel very long at all. It was entertaining enough to prevent me from noticing the long run-time. The movie was another giant feast for the senses, from the acting to the plot, from the images on the screen to the phenomenal score by Simon Franglen. Everything blended together to create a thrilling experience, and I honestly can’t wait for the next three movies to be made. If they are as good as the first two movies in the franchise, I bet we’re in for a wild and fantastic ride.