“Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022) is the second in a projected five (dear, Lord) movies in the “Avatar” franchise. It fast forwards through sixteen years after the end of “Avatar” (2009). Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the human who occupies a human Na’vi hybrid body, and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), Na’vi royalty, have a family, which makes them vulnerable when the human beings return to officially colonize the planet and extract its resources. Meanwhile Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) has been resurrected in a human Na’vi hybrid body with no memory of his death, but out for revenge, which happens to dovetail nicely with his orders, but he cannot hit a moving target. With the Sully family on the run, they leave the forest and the Omatikaya clan and head to the Metkayina clan who reside on the coast. Will they adjust to a new way of life? While beginning as a retread of the first film in a different setting, it eventually distinguishes itself by beginning to reflect the values of the Na’vi people and let an animal, Payakun (Kevin Dorman), become a breakout star.
James Cameron learned how to rectify some of his past mistakes. No one watches a movie in the “Jurassic Park” franchise for the people though if they are interesting, it is a nice bonus. Think of “Avatar: The Way of Water” as the unofficial sequel to “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986) with a blue whalelike creature (James Cameron forbade the creature comparison), a tulkun, being more interesting than the entire cast in two movies. If you have seen the photograph of a humpback whale allowing a diver to touch his fin, then you will understand the main appeal of this film. The importance of all life no longer feels like empty gum flapping, but a visceral reality. Palakun is an outcast rumored to be a killer, and when he is first introduced, he is slicing through a vicious animal, but he communicates with younger son, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), much to the horror of everyone who hears it. Payakun’s story arc is so impactful though wordless, and he is not the only tulkun who steals the show. Roa and her calf son did all their own stunts, and they are a famous team rumored to be long time associates with the legendary Zoe Bell.
On the other hand, Cameron got as much wrong as he got right. He finds inventive ways to bring back a great villain, but Lang is less interesting to watch coated in CGI than the real thing. His character appears to be on a journey to get rehabilitated, and he becomes a foil to Sully as he starts caring about people unrelated to his mission, which includes Tarzan, I mean, Spider (Jack Champion), a Na’vi wannabe who thankfully only talks about donning blue face, but never fully does; however he has blonde dreads so do with that what you will. Quaritch talks a big game and endangers people, but compared to his first appearance, he is a big softie. Boo hiss. Cameron also finds a way to get Sigourney Weaver back with a mystical pregnancy that produces Sully’s adopted daughter, Kiri (also Weaver), who seems to have a special, powerful connection to the ecosystem. Weaver does sound younger, but occasionally the maturity in her voice comes pouring out, and no one would be fooled on the phone for long that she is a fourteen-year-old girl.
When Neytiri is allowed to cook, she is a complete badass, but Cameron only brings her out for special occasions. Her oldest son, Netayem (Jamie Flatters), is a one-dimensional dutiful son who wants to emulate his dad. The aforementioned Lo’ak always disobeys orders but is well-intentioned. Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) is the baby and utterly forgettable unless stakes need to be raised, and the villains need a hostage. There is a culture clash when the Sully family goes on their beach holiday (sarcasm), but for Lo’ak, love may be in the air with the chief’s daughter, Tsireya (Bailey Bass, who resembles Halle Bailey in CGI), but not if her brother, Aonung (Filip Geljo) has anything to say about it. Fortunately, it goes nowhere in this edition.
Again, here is where Cameron’s colonizer mindset prevents him from fully imagining a society unlike ours. Remember, “Lord of the Flies” feels like a universal story, but upon closer examination, it was shocking to realize that in real life, a similar incident happened, and the community of six shipwrecked Tongan Catholic boys did not devolve but survived on an island for a year. He can only imagine the Metkayina adolescent boys as bullies with no care for the lives of other children because Cameron thinks that Western existence is universal experience, and an utopian world needs to be imagined when it may exist or existed, but was killed, suppressed or displaced to smaller segments. Even a well-intentioned filmmaker trying to decolonize brings a colonizer mindset to utopia.
When trouble comes to the Metkayina, even though they assemble to fight, there is no trace of them as the fight continues. The chief Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) barely gets to do anything except hold the line. Ronal (Kate Winslet), the tsahik or spiritual leader, mainly gets to look horrified. The Metkayina are supposed to be the Maori. The Omatikaya take elements from the Aztec and Mayan empires and contemporary Sudanese culture. I love Winslet down, but the “Avatar” franchise casting practices feel like the equivalent of saying, “I want to make movies about indigenous people without casting as many indigenous people as possible.” Predominantly in the Seventies, a lot of people felt as if they were socially conscious enough that they were spiritually Black, and it seems like the same is occurring with ecological stewarding except it makes them indigenous, which is actually close to a line that Spider says while still in the forest. There is nothing wrong with being a part of the majority culture and in a nontoxic way, retracing and rediscovering those roots when they were indigenous and respectful of the Earth. Beyond Jemaine Clement, who plays a guilt-ridden marine biologist, dip into Taika Waititi’s casting bag and find a woman of Maori descent instead of Winslet’s interpretation of that accent. With that said, Winslet may have been cast for her surpassing Tom Cruise levels ability to stay underwater from working with Cameron in “Titanic” (1997).
Does “Avatar: The Way of Water” need to be as long as it does? No. Like “Avatar,” Cameron is so in love with the world that he created that he thinks the visual spectacle is sufficient, and the story does not have to continue moving forward as the audience gawks. He almost gets it with Palakun, and hopefully subsequent installments fully integrate his story with sumptuous visuals. I actually did not mind the gawking as much this time around because movies are not inundated with sea creatures whereas the forest exploits were more enjoyable when “Game of Thrones” stole them and tossed them into Khalessi’s storyline.
Overall “Avatar: The Way of Water” is an improvement because it does not rest on the shoulders of bump on a log Sam Worthington or a thinly drawn generic action protagonist. If loving your wife and kids is a defining character trait, then the world needs to step it up because it really should not be.
