Source: 20th Century Studios
13 years ago James Cameron – the man behind some of the most famous and biggest films in the world – made us all say “hey, I think 3D in cinema is going to be the next thing”. He did it with “Avatar”, a 3-hour film that got many excited not only about the film itself but also about the possible future of cinema. Since then, 3D has not become the future of cinema (and thank God for that), but James Cameron took the time and brought us the first sequel (out of four) to the original Avatar. We have already watched it, and this is what we have to say about it – without fear of spoilers or watching in 2D.
A lot was invested in the visuals, but not much in the script
“Avatar: The Way of the Water” (henceforth “The Way of the Water”) takes place a decade after the end of the previous film in which (we do not give a spoiler warning for the 13-year-old film that you are now reading the sequel review of) Jake Sully joins the Na’bi and succeeds To drive the humans out of Pandora after he became “Turok Makto”. Jake Vantieri are the parents of four children, and it seems that they have reached some kind of high point in their lives. But then the humans decided they were making a comeback to Pandora (surprise!) – and they wanted to eliminate someone very specific along the way. This leads Jake and the family to go into exile, and no more is said.
Let’s start with the most important thing: “The Way of the Water”, just like the first film, is a visually stunning film and if there is one thing you should do if you decide to see the film in the cinema – it is to see it in 3D at IMAX. As someone who regularly loathes the format, partly because I wear glasses and it’s unbearable to watch these movies with two pairs of glasses on my face, I still insist that you should very much go see the movie in this format.
Source: 20th Century Studios
The film, throughout, and especially in the many scenes that are underwater (this is not a spoiler, the film is specifically called “The Way of the Water”), looks like something I have never seen before – and this is where James Cameron comes into the picture and his ability to constantly innovate and try to push his films A step and another step forward, even when on paper it looks like there’s not much left to go. He did it with the “Terminator” movies (the first and especially the second, the rest don’t matter), with Titanic and with the first Avatar. And he does it this time too.
The film is truly a visual experience that I haven’t had in a long time, and that alone is worth going to watch – and of course in IMAX. However, it’s hard for me not to point out that the film – even if it has slightly different motifs on the front – feels like a pretty serious recycling of the previous film. Once again the elements of foreignness and dealing with it return, as mentioned above the battle against the external conqueror in the form of humans and the raising of ecological issues on the agenda through the plot of the film. It also feels that if in the first film James Cameron introduced elements of the battle between the Europeans and the Native Americans, here he is Introduces a new tribe into the plot which is a rather lame parallel to the Maori – the Polynesian natives from New Zealand. For reference, the chief’s actor in the current film is of Maori descent.
More than 3 hours that will pass you by easily
Source: 20th Century Studios
The film manages to produce quite a few storylines for us, and put new characters at the heart of the film – such as Jake Vantieri’s children – without abandoning the parents themselves (relatively speaking, Vantieri feels a bit like someone who is sometimes disconnected from the plot). Maybe I kind of forgot how violent the original movie was, but “The Way of the Water” is also a very violent movie even if it doesn’t have a lot of blood. Cameron manages to produce scenes that are not easy to watch throughout, especially for those of you who come with a built-in affection for animals.
Despite sometimes excessive visual choices (if you drink a chaser every time there is a shot in slow motion you will probably leave the film very drunk) and problems with its editing, one of the great achievements of this film is that you do not want to run away from it even though it is one of the longest films you will probably see in your life. It’s not a Claude Lanzmann holocaust, but 3 hours and 10 minutes that sound like a recipe for disaster – managed to pass me by easily without me feeling the need to glance to see what time it was. What’s more, drinking during the movie can quickly turn out to be a mistake – because you need every drop not to run to the bathroom, unless you have no problem leaving in the middle of the movie. Cameron addressed this himself and said that in his opinion there is no problem with the viewers going out for a pee break at any moment they want in the movie because according to him “they will be able to see what they missed when they come to see the movie again”. Well, this is also a method to cover 2 billion dollars of expenses.
To Cameron’s credit, he did his own thing. Even if there are places for improvement in the film, he provided another film here that I think will be a huge hit. It needs to make a lot of money at the box office to recoup the huge investment, and be a significant springboard for the three sequels in the series that should arrive every December, once every two years, until 2028. The film is expected to be a hit mainly in IMAX, which brings in more, so maybe that will help it reach to the destination – but it will probably be very difficult to stop the train of “The Way of the Water” from running over every other film that comes out in terms of revenue for at least the next two or three months.