Avatar: The Way of Water – James Cameron’s epic finally has a sequel after 13 years

The first Avatar was released in 2009 to critical acclaim and sat as the highest grossing film of all-time, beating James Cameron’s other epic film Titanic, until Marvel’s Avengers: End Game beat that record. The first Avatar managed to usher the world of 3D and out-of-this-world visual fidelities not seen in cinema before. While it’s story wasn’t unique, its all-in-one experience was and one achieved with a huge budget. That film was a triumph of its time and remains a masterpiece worth watching with friends and family. 

Alas and at last, Avatar: The Way of Water was released in December 2022. The film starts by recapping on the events of the previous film and provides a quick synopsis on what has changed in the 13 years since the last film – just in case people had forgotten. Jake and Neytiri have a family, with two sons and a daughter and have adopted Grace’s child Kiri and Colonel Miles Quaritch’s son Spider. Kiri’s birth seems miraculous given Grace’s death in the first film. What remains a mystery is Kiri’s paternal relative.

Avatar: The Way of Water starts by showing the Na’vi tribe that Jake and Neytiri belong to are at peace. But like all good things, the story unravels with the second coming of humans with their monstrous machines and planet ravaging technology.

The return of humans and their plans to extract valuable resources from Pandora is the same mission as the first film, and again sets the stage for the film’s conflict. Early on and to establish a connection with the first film, we are re-introduced to a familiar foe, Colonel Miles Quaritch, but this time he has been reincarnated into an avatar with memories of his old self before his death at the ends of Jake and Neytiri. Despite not being the same Miles, this version of Miles seems hellbent on exacting his revenge on Jake Sully.

With the human’s return and the threat posed by Miles and his entourage, Jake decides that to protect his tribe, he has to relocate his family far away to another tribe, the water tribe – who look visually more teal with very different evolved, physical attributes such as strong tails and have fins.

The family have to start all over and train with the water tribe, but Jake and his family can’t seem to escape Miles…

My thoughts on the film

Despite evidence of humans landing in various parts of Pandora, I wonder why the film decided to focus its attention on the conflict between Jake and Miles. It seems inconceivable given that humans are looking to extract so many precious resources that the whole film is dedicated to this conflict. (Perhaps future sequels will flesh it out more.)

The film introduces us to another precious resource, the fluid from the brains of the tulkun, which is said to provide everlasting vitality, life to people. This resource is this film’s “unobtainium”. Again, money seems to be the main reason why this precious resource is being hunted by some Aussie-sounding hunters that accompany Miles and his entourage.

The film spends a long time establishing the new water tribe and Jack and Neytiri’s new home. In terms of characters, most of it goes to Jake and Neytiri’s second son, Lo’ak, who often takes a lot of the center stage as he is the most daredevilish and adventurous of the children – often getting the other children into dangerous situations. Lo’ak’s growth is fascinating as he befriends a whale-like animal and saves the day several times in the film’s final minutes, but Lo’ak’s growth comes at the expense of any growth for most of the other characters who for the most part remain very similar to how they were at the start of the film. (Though Kiri demonstrates some unusual affinity to nature and the animals, but goes unexplained.)

The final arc of the film takes a while with many twists and turns and multiple fights/confrontations. There were moments when I thought, why is Jack and Neytiri’s family all alone – where are the water tribe people to help. (But I can appreciate from a director’s perspective that it’s better to focus on certain characters or risk having a confusing film with random people doing things.)

Overall, there are many incredible underwater scenes, making the film visual spectacular. While the film is unlikely to be best story of the year, it manages to do something that many modern films – which is being able to allow people to just sit back and be entranced in incredible visuals and a story that is understandable and relatable from beginning to end.

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