Avatar: The Way of Water is a tale of two halves

Avatar: The Way of Water (TWoW) picks up where Avatar left off, and promptly brings us up to speed on the events that transpired after the final battle of the first movie. However, that’s as prompt as it gets, as TWoW certainly takes its time getting to the next one.

Jake and Neytiri settle into family life, but not for long.

We’re quickly introduced to Jake Sully (Forever CGI man Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña)’s brood, which includes eldest son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), younger ‘under-the-shadow-of’ brother Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), the precocious Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and adopted Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who is actually Dr Grace Augustine’s (also Sigourney Weaver) daughter. They at least enjoy several years of peace and familial happiness before the inevitable happens. ‘War, war never changes,’ said some wiseass from another franchise.

They decided to get more mileage out of Miles Quaritch.

Inevitably, the sky people (hoomans and meowmies, but mostly Karens of all genders) are back and force the Omatikaya clan into hiding. And since he already appears in the trailer so it’s not much of a spoiler, Colonel Miles Quaritch is back, only he’s not really Quaritch as we know him. Quaritch’s memories have now been reconstituted into an avatar and he’s on a mission to take out the Sullies. The family eventually flees from hiding to go into further hiding, and that leads them to the ocean.

The Metakinya are guarded, but do Jake a solid anyway.

There, amongst a peninsula of islands, we’re introduced to the Metkayina, who are to the sea what the Omatikayina are to the forest. They are led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal (Kate Winslet), who welcome the Sullies but not without some consternation, and I’m pretty sure at this point you already know where this is heading towards.

Aside from predictability, one of the biggest issues with TWoW is everything before the turning point in the movie. If you’re looking for a plot here, you’ll find plod instead. Until the final act at least, the pacing is pedestrian and the dialogue is as uninspired as it gets.

There’s CGI and there’s Avatar CGI.

TWoW certainly takes its time to get to the good part, though to be fair I can see why: the visuals are drop-dead gorgeous and they can’t stop showing you scene after scene of glorious CGI fuelled plausibly by broken marriages and shiploads of Monster Energy Drinks. I’m not a fan of CGI, but the love the animators and motion capture team put into this spectacle is plain to see and should be given their due. CGI gets a lot of flak these days because people have become savvy enough to tell if they’re well done or not. But James Cameron is likely an “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing” sort of guy because the effects here are way beyond anything out there right now.

The water effects look everything you thought they would be: painful to get them right.

In fact, I would like to think Cameron chose to set TWoW in the ocean as a way of showing off what they could do in terms of animation. Naturally, you’re not going to believe that it’s actually real, but everything feels so life-like; the way the water ripples, the way hair moves in the water–I think it’s fair to say that the behind-the-scenes videos will be far more interesting than the movie. They basically went, let’s make a movie but it’s also Sasuke Ninja Warrior for the special effects team at the same time.

Parent-child relationships play a big role in The Way of Water.

I understand I come across as unnecessarily bitchy about a movie that’s meant to be a visual spectacle, so I extend my olive branch: in all fairness, thematically, TWoW has something going on here–aside from looking after our environment–that will resonate with audiences and have been dramatised well. Very well, indeed. Many of the characters are outcasts, looking to find their place in the world and live up to the expectations of others. TWoW also explores a near-universal parent-child dynamic and even Quaritch has to figure out his relationship with his son, Miles ‘Spider’ Socorro (Jack Champion), who is ‘tight’ with the Sullies.

Get ready for a intense conclusion to an explosive battle.

At the end of the day, Cameron’s movies are always about the big moments. And in TWoW, they are majestic indeed. Emotional and visceral, the final act of the movie pays off a sluggish build-up–and your patience–with a high-stakes, high-tension battle. Had they not conspired to drag out the final showdown with a couple of uninspired twists like it was a slow night at WWE Smackdown it would have been pitch-perfect. But they get there at the end, which is what counts, I suppose.