It’s been 14 years since ‘Avatar’ released, and going by the benchmark the film set for itself in terms of visual effects, you almost expect ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ to be just as good, if not many times better. It is.
James Cameron’s latest offering from the Avatar franchise is not just visually brilliant — it is the embodiment of elite special effects, immersive film-viewing experience and a superlative visual spectacle. But that’s not the only great feature about ‘The Way of Water’. The film is beautiful in many different ways.
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ begins a few years after the first film ends, and the world of our protagonists has expanded. Human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Omaticayan wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), have three children — Neteyam, Lo’ak and Tuk — and foster Kiri, the offspring of fellow-avatar Dr Grace Augustine from the first film. There’s also Spider, the child of the Na’vi nemesis Colonel Quaritch, who hangs around with this bunch.
Everything seems fine until it is revealed early on in the film that the now-deceased Col Quaritch has had his memories uplinked to an avatar that is now making its way with a few other bad guys — all avatars — to stage another attempt at invading Pandora.
This time, it isn’t so much land and resources that Quaritch and his team seek, as it is revenge against Jake for foiling their attempts at planetary colonisation in the first film. To foil their plans, the family makes a dash for the Metkayina tribe — Cliff Cutis and Kate Winslet play Tonowari and Ronal to perfection — that has made their home in the ocean reef, to seek refuge. And just like that, Cameron’s imagination turns a new chapter.
Stunning visuals effects aside, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is a great reminder of how much like protagonist Jake Sully, Cameron has pretty much made Pandora his cinematic home. A decade and a half since the first film released, he shows his audience that at the core of his filmmaking, he is a world-builder.
How else do you explain the creation of a whole new dimension to Pandora? A turquoise water tribe and their Mangrove-like dwellings called Marui pods, an intelligent whale-like species: the Tulkun, jellyfish capable of absorbing air, magical sea anemones, flying fish or Skimwings reared for transport, the Metkayina’s sacred Cove of The Ancestors — you could go on. ‘The Way of Water’ has Cameron packing his bags and moving from the jungle to the ocean, and he wants your visit to be filled with wonder.
While you watch the film and are seized by the scale, beauty and aesthetic of it all, you can’t help but notice that ‘The Way of Water’ is also proof that Cameron has brought the best of his filmography to the Na’vi world. There’s a bit of ‘Titanic’ and ‘Terminator’ through the course of the film. The style and setting is such that you need to remind yourself at various parts of the film that what you are watching is actually wholly imaginary.
The antagonists too look every bit menacing, colonising and up to no good. There are state-of-the-art speedboats armed with harpoons and tracking devices, and there are sleek mini submarines that come with torpedoes. The revenge angle aside, a team of “sky people” are also all out to harvest a certain mineral from the ocean through immoral and inhumane means.
Over the course of the last few years, ‘Avatar’ has been criticized for being weak on dialogue and storyline while letting its graphics do the heavy-lifting. ‘The Way of Water’ on that front, is an improvement.
The film makes us empathize with Jake’s family — their displacement is our displacement, their sense of loss and sorrow is ours. In a particularly pivotal scene involving the middle-child, Lo’ak, we find ourselves accompanying him on a rite of passage in an unfamiliar and somewhat threatening environment.
Before we know it, much like the Na’vis form a bond with the beasts of their wild, we are bound through our hearts and souls with the Sullys — their kindness, coming-of-age, struggle, sorrows, resilience and perseverance. The film’s protagonist isn’t one but a unit that we can relate to on many levels.
A lot has been said and written about what a visual masterpiece ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is, and nothing good can come of repetition. However, the fact is there’s so much more to the film that outstanding visual effects. Watch it for a touching story that has you empathizing with the Sullys and their newfound allies, as the familiar yet epic faceoff between human colonisers and an alien race resumes 14 years after it first began.
First Published: Dec 17, 2022 5:06 PM IST
