Avatar: The Way of Water

​​ThereThere are two thoughts that you never want to cross your mind at a movie theater. One is “Did I just step in gum?” The other is “Is this supposed to look this way?

I didn’t see Avatar: The Way Of Water on an IMAX 3D screen because I made a deal with myself. If I liked Avatar: Way Of Water enough on a smaller screen then I’d watch it again on the biggest, bestest screen I could find.

Well, forget about those plans. I doubt I’ll watch Avatar 2 again on any screen unless James Cameron would like to pay my travel expenses and buy me tickets and maybe take me out to dinner first. That’s what A few thoughts:

• Yes, this is a cartoon. It’s almost entirely CGI. When live-action characters (humans) enter the picture, which isn’t often, you’re reminded that you’re watching an expensive cartoon and it’s honestly a little jarring. There’s some uncanny valley stuff here, but mainly the Navi just look super fake compared to the humans, and the humans feel super out-of-place surrounded by Navi. Who Framed Roger Rabbit did it better.
• the graphics in this movie are great but the story? Eh. Not so much.
• The movie is too long! it took me roughly more than 4 hour to watch it in theater. It’s an hour too long.
• The best way I can describe Way Of Water with its massive SFX budget, the 3D, the IMAX format, the runtime. All of it. It’s arrogant and self-indulgent. The ‘wow’ factor is gone and all I see is an expensive cartoon having simple and ordinary story.
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• There are some fun moments in the movie! I loved the tulkun, a hyper-intelligent species of whale that can communicate telepathically. I thought they did some really neat stuff with all the ocean and aquatic bits, which is no surprise given James Cameron’s love of the ocean that permeates so much of his work, in better films like Titanic and The Abyss.
• Some of the fights—while too long—were exciting and action-packed and had cool special effects. There were some funny and heartwarming scenes. I was entertained when I wasn’t bored. I can’t wait for video games to have graphics as crisp and high-definition!

  But the story is a mess. It’s a retread of the first film. The mustache-twirling villains are after the precious resources of Pandora. This time it’s a golden whale goo that halts human aging. Last time it was the hilariously named Unobtanium. New resource, same plot. Now we have water Navi with bigger tails who can swim underwater for a really long time. Now we have underwater scenery instead of jungles. But the bad guys are coming with their guns and their bombs and their bombs and their guns.

  And the Navi—a crude analog for the indigenous people of our own world—remain the Noble Savage trope they were in the last film, only less interesting now. The White Savior, Jake Sully, has been fully integrated into their community, but whatever interesting stuff defined them prior to his arrival, it’s all taken a back seat now to him and his family. Sully’s stick together! we are reminded. More than once.

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  However beautiful some of the CGI and scenery is in Way Of Water, it’s often broken up by weird editing, jarring cuts and even more jarring zooms. Multiple times throughout the film there’s aggressive digital zooms that rip you out of any sense of immersion. My kids talked about this on our drive home after, so it’s not just your humble narrator who found this off-putting.

  Worse, still, was the dialogue, especially among Jake’s children. For some reason, all the kids constantly say “bro” or “cuz” to each other. I guess it’s because Cameron and his writers think this is how the young people talk these days or something. But even if that is how kids in the US talk in 2022—it isn’t, not to this degree—it makes no sense on an alien planet. It’s not like Jake is saying “bro” all the time (he often uses military jargon which makes more sense and it makes sense when the kids use it). Did the kids pick this up from . . . the human scientists?

  It’s so cringey and weird. It reminds me of the bad dialogue in the new Willow series. “I got you, bro!” “Yeah, bro, let’s go, bro!” “Hey cuz, let’s do this!”

  Shut. Up. Shut up! This isn’t how people talk, let alone Navi people raised in a traditional tribe! It’s awful. Truly awful. The writing feels much worse than in the first Avatar and that film didn’t have particularly compelling dialogue to begin with.

  In the end, we have a film that follows many of the same beats as its predecessor, is overly-reliant on special effects instead of a good script, and has much too much going on at all times to really help establish this as a meaningful sequel that sets up a compelling franchise we want to keep diving into in three (or more?) movies.

• I can’t say don’t watch Avatar 2 in theaters. It’s still a crazy example of where technology, CGI and film has come over the years and I’m sure it’s a wild ride in IMAX 3D. But don’t go in with very high expectations, either. If the seats in my theater had been more comfortable, I’m pretty sure I would have taken a nice long nap. But then I would have had to watch it again to pen this review, and that would be . . . unfortunate.

• Have you seen Avatar: The Way Of Water yet?