‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ review: James Cameron’s wet cinematic bore
In the midst of a financial and creative crisis, Disney must love James Cameron. At a moment in which they cannot always count on the stability of the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, the consistency of Cameron’s box office success is rather remarkable, with his latest 3D spectacular, Avatar: The Way of Water, earning the ‘House of Mouse’ over $2billion worldwide. Though a financial success, The Way of Water doesn’t quite swell with artistic purity, with the spectacularly dull sequel feeling more like a cynical cash-in than an epic cinematic victory.
Released over a decade after the original Avatar movie broke box office records in 2009, Cameron thankfully begins his film with a short recap of what audiences almost certainly forgot since they were last in the vibrant world of Pandora. The imperialistic American army (nicknamed the ‘Sky People’) retreated from the planet of the Na’vi after the events of the first film but were quick to return with fire and fury, flattening an area of dense shrubbery to make way for a pointless plain of seemingly empty skyscrapers.
Meanwhile, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who died during the finale of the original film, is back, albeit in clone Na’vi form, to ‘finish what he started’ and hunt down Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a marine who changed agencies once he saw the beauty and liberty of the native people. Having started a blue family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), Sully now has a family to take care of whilst he retreads the footsteps of the previous movie and tries to kill Quaritch…again.
Constructed and marketed as a visual ‘experience’, The Way of Water better resembles an extended video game cutscene which shows off a stunning animated landscape, rather than a traditional cinematic tale made up of layered characters and complex decision making. Indeed, the visual ambition of Cameron’s film cannot be faulted, with the filmmaker creating a spectacular vista that cannot be challenged by any other CGI-heavy blockbuster on offer.
But where he plugs so much effort into its azure glow, Cameron omits any focus on narrative, creating a movie that keeps your retinas entertained whilst your brain desperately searches for something more profound to attach onto. Alas, The Way of Water provides little material at all to get stuck into, providing characters and situations so ‘by the book’ that the film’s ‘epic conclusion’ can be predicted long before the closing credits.
Stripping plot points from similar environmental fantasies, such as 1992s FernGully and 1993s Free Willy, for a filmmaker who has pioneered cinematic innovation on several occasions, it’s remarkable quite how unimaginative he proves to be with The Way of Water. Spending millions of dollars to craft a meticulous paradise of viridescent forests and sparkling oceans, the director makes the baffling decision for the finale to take place on a ginormous grey military ship during the night.
Though the initial thrill of being in Pandora might leave your mouth agape, it will slowly close shut once you realise that there is little beyond the film’s surface sparkle beside the excitement of twiddling the 3D glasses in front of your own eyes. In meticulously curating a CGI wonderland, Cameron has forgotten what made such classics as 1984s The Terminator and 1986s Aliens so great – unforgettable characters and gripping drama.
