Riot’s Reviews: Avatar: The Way of Water
It’s kind of unreal to think about just how much time has passed since the release of James Cameron’s original Avatar. In 2009, I was barely a year out of college and just starting my current career. To date, as far as hype for a film goes, I can’t think of another title that carried as much anticipation as Cameron’s first foray into the amazing world of Pandora. As far as I am concerned, the original Avatar delivered on its promise to show people something they had never seen before and I’d venture that most of us were far too busy being visually blown away that most, if not all, storytelling issues were easily overlooked. General sentiment long after I left the theater was that Avatar boiled down to the new Pocahontas or FernGully: The Last Rainforest on steroids. So, given thirteen years of time, would Avatar: The Way of Water be able to deliver a story that could match the stunningly impressive graphics? Quite simply, it did not. But much like its 2009 predecessor, I was too visually stunned to really care.
Avatar: The Way of Water has been out for a couple weeks now, so I would normally feel fairly comfortable evaluating specific plot points and not be worried about spoilers. But for the sake of consistency, I will refrain. Previews for the new Avatar were more cryptic than they needed to be, but the plot of the movie essentially sums up to this: When a familiar threat returns to Pandora, Jake Sully and his expanded family must flee their home in the forest and adapt to a new life amongst the water tribes. Story-wise, the original film suffered less from excessive plot holes and more from excessive clichés (“unobtainium” likely being the most silly example amongst many). The Way of Water flips the script on this and many of the creative choices (mainly how the villain of the story and one of Jake’s children come to be) come off as pretty lazy. The film’s choice to continue pressing on human imperialism or corporate greed is also boring at this point. If you’ve already spent 3+ hours harping on it, who wants to spend another 3+ hours doing it all over again thirteen years later?
Story issues aside, The Way of Water excelled in two main ways: 1) presenting the audience with absolutely gorgeous depictions of underwater scenes with dazzling and unique sea life and 2) adding new and dynamic actors/talent to the story in the form of Jake’s children (no matter how infuriating their choices are throughout the film) and the Metkayina (the oceanic tribe). At the end of the day, there’s only so many ways a person could say how beautiful the visual effects were, so I’ll simply leave it at this: you’ve never seen anything like it.
Normally, I would prefer staying away from controversies outside of the film and just focus on its content. But similar to Don’t Worry Darling, the director’s insistence on opening their mouth is compelling a response. Cameron offered a “hot take” just before releasing The Way of Water that can only be summed up as an overblown virtue signal when it’s set against the backdrop of not only his previous works that gave him success in the first place, but also against the very film he was currently promoting. The entire premise of The Way of Water centers around a father that chooses to do literally everything in his power to protect his family. If there is even a remotely logical argument that there exists a man that doesn’t need testosterone to be able to do the things that Jake does to defend his children, I’d like to hear it (granted, maybe the Na’vi don’t have that chemical composition, but that’s a hell of a stretch). Maybe if more fathers stayed active and involved in the fates of their families, making use of that pesky “toxin”, some legitimate change could be had in society today.
Riot’s Rating: 7.8/10: Avatar: The Way of Water is simply a must-see, go enjoy some visual ecstasy.
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