PG-13 | 3h 12m | Fantasy, Action, Adventure | Dec. 16, 2022
“Avatar: The Way of Water” is receiving a one-week, limited engagement re-release in 3D theaters starting Friday, Oct. 3. This theatrical run will also include special sneak-peek footage from the upcoming film “Avatar: Fire and Ash”; which releases in December 2025. Director James Cameron suggested “Water’s” re-release in order to refresh audiences’ memories of the Avatar world and prepare them for “Fire.”
See It in 3D!
The biggest cinematic mistake I made three years ago with “Avatar: The Way of Water” was getting impatient and watching it in 2D. I highly recommend watching it in its natural habitat of 3D and IMAX. When I feel compelled to see a film twice in a short period, it gets an automatic 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. 3D puts “Water” at a solid 5 stars.While the movie is amazing in terms of all the cinema-magic it has to offer, I have an issue with one of the story’s themes, which is its kill-humans-and-save-the-planets narrative. More about this later. If there was an Oscar for pure ambition, director James Cameron would have won it a long time ago. A few of them. His original “Avatar” (2009), a 3D action epic about 9-feet-tall, blue-skinned, tiger-striped, green-eyed extraterrestrials, remains, by some measures, the most successful movie ever made.
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’
“Water” throws every kind of popular appeal up against the wall to see what sticks—and it pretty much all sticks. The paradoxes inherent in its themes automatically provide enough tension to make it riveting. That is, it’s militaristic but pacifistic; family-friendly but violent, and it pays homage to the beauty of nature by showcasing overwhelming, gut-churning, government-mandated, capitalist exploitation of pristine planets.
Recap of the Original
Underlying their science fiction trappings, the “Avatar” franchise is basically an extended romantic adventure tale about a colonizer who goes “native.” It’s a tradition that’s as long and venerable as the art of storytelling.By the end of the first “Avatar” film, former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) had abandoned his human body to live an avatar life as a Na‘vi (aforementioned blue aliens). The Na’vi live in tribal harmony with nature on Pandora, an idyllic, lush, triple-canopy jungle moon situated a galaxy far, far away, where all the flora is luminescent and all the fauna have two sets of eyes. In the 13 years between the first two films, Jake Sully and his Na’vi mate Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) have raised four children.
Jake then leads a band of Na’vi insurgents against the resource-hoovering “Sky People” (human invaders). Jake’s former commanding officer, Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the first film’s villain, returns as an even bigger threat. Because now he’s got his own Na’vi avatar body with memories and personality uploaded—all the better to infiltrate the natives. His transformation, however, is strictly camouflage; in his heart he remains a gung-ho, semper fi jarhead with the sole mission of killing Jake Sully.
An Escape
Jake and his family are forced to flee their forest. They eventually take refuge with an ocean-dwelling clan known as the Metkayina. This is where one almost expects to see a New York Museum of Natural History-type plaque: “Metkayina, a subspecies of Aquatic Na’vi.” These marine-adaptated, turquoise-skinned Na'vi have broad, fin-like forearms and finned tails. They also sport bigger muscles and more numerous tattoos.
But before Col. Quaritch arrives, there’s plenty of time for the family to get situated in their new digs, go exploring, and for all the combined tribal kids to make friends, rivalries, and take the audience with them on adventures.
Lo’ak is the movie’s emotional core. His loneliness and journey to finding sanctuary in the ocean, with its exciting creatures, is touching, as the underwater sequences and visuals are truly gorgeous.
More About Na’vi and Metkayina Kids
Sigourney Weaver plays a dual role here, in flashbacks as Dr. Grace Augustine of the first “Avatar” and also as Kiri, who was born of Grace’s Na’vi body (quite complicated pseudoscience). While it was a bit of a stretch for the then 73-year-old Weaver to play a 14-year-old teen, she turned in such a highly convincing, youthful performance that one can’t imagine anyone else in the role.
Then, there’s Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion), who was too young to be transported back to Earth. He was raised on Pandora with the Na’vi and the handful of human scientists allowed to remain. Miles is the biological son of Colonel Miles Quaritch. The original human Quaritch fathered Miles with his Scorpion pilot, Paz Socorro, before his death in the first “Avatar” film. Spider is like one of those kittens who hop instead of run because they’ve been raised in a rabbit litter.
But there’s an undeniable bond between father and son. Their relationship is powerful and conflicted as father-son bonds tend to be, and further complicated by the fact that Quaritch is a mission-obsessed, merciless killer-Marine, but also undeniably human and surprisingly relatable.
Overall
The calm first hour of “Water” is worth sitting through to get to the action-packed climax (which puts all Marvel and DC equivalents to shame), not to mention the sheer beauty of the colors and creatures. It builds excitingly throughout, and peaks in its final hour with probably the best action sequences of Cameron’s career.The film is a refreshing ode to traditional family values. While the whole story line about settling into a new home has an enjoyable 1950s vibe, the scale is ultimately grand, the stakes immense, and the final sea battle filled with incredible moments and even humor.
The ocean in this sea-going version of Pandora is unquestionably the film’s greatest character, in the same way the jungle was in the jungle version preceding it—which is why you absolutely must see “Water” in 3D and IMAX. While the Sully family is captivating, and things don’t wrap up as cleanly as in the original (because it has to set the stage for “Fire”) this episode still feels complete and totally satisfying.
While this film is lots of fun, the main problem with the “Avatar” movies is that they’re couched in Cameron’s left-leaning interpretation of planet-saving. He blames the entire Na’vi-human conflict as government-backed capitalism gone wrong and casts the military as a heinous villain. This second “Avatar” ups the villain ante by linking the military exploitation with a fictitious, Aussie-led, super-techno-sophisticated whaling outfit on planet Pandora. It includes a truly excruciating whale-hunt scene such that “Water” will have you hating the U.S. military.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” gets a 5 out of 5 stars for movie magic, and a 2 1/2 stars for subversive societal themes. Its family values are great though—too bad humans don’t currently have family values as human as the Na’vi and the Metkayina.
