Avatar: The Way of Water is a visually stunning look into the oceans that will keep you watching.
Avatar 2 Story
Avatar: The Way of Water begins with the story of the Sulli family (Jake, Neytiri, and their children), the troubles that follow them, the lengths they will go to to keep each other safe, the battles that They fight to survive, and the tragedy they experience. The story is set more than ten years after the events of the first film.
Avatar 2 Review
James Cameron’s obsession with water and how it can also be the greatest threat to human life has been widely seen with his 1996 masterpiece Titanic. That film became a favorite for many for setting technical standards, and it became an easy crowd-pleaser. -Winner around the world. However, Cameron had previously portrayed water as a threat in his 1982 feature film Piranha II: The Spawning. Since then, his films have always been either man vs. machine or man vs. water.
Avatar: The Way of Water is a mix of both! The 2009 film established human life as a threat to any planet visited. After 13 years and a long wait for a sequel, Cameron is back with a recycled version of the first installment.
Well, the story is recyclable, unlike the garbage we find in the ocean that was created and thrown away by humans. In this film, mankind is once again shown as garbage, only interested in wreaking havoc and never in co-existence.
The first part of Avatar: The Way of Water is an extended feature film in itself, providing viewers with a recap of the world of Pandora, in case you were impatient for the sequel and watched the film multiple times until the new release. The extrasolar moon, like Earth, has water and 1,000 islands around it.
After building a family life and becoming leaders of the jungle, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) once again meet the people of the sky on their descent to Pandora as an apocalypse approaches. Thus, this leads them to migrate to the island of Metakayna and start a new family with their four children.
This is the basic premise, and there are no surprising facts about how the story should turn. But it’s the detailed execution that takes the cake, making us get lost in the marine world and fling through the waves like a marine life.
It is Jake and Neytiri’s family life that receives most of the attention in the script. We see them conversing in Naʼvi in the beginning, and shortly after Jake says they’re only comfortable talking in English, making it a complete priority. This time, the new language they learn is ASL, in order to communicate underwater and also to make sounds from the epiglottis.
It’s easy to draw parallels between Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water as the film begins in a documentary style and shows how, this time, not only Jake but the entire Sully family adapts to a new marine life. The first film featured dragon-like flying creatures as their mode of transportation; This time sea animals like giant whales have been added.
Also, Russell Carpenter’s cinematography plays an important role, as it mostly comes in go-pro mode, with tilts and high-speed action captured just like we do when shooting on a phone camera. A Jaws-like sequence will keep your heart racing in the first half, setting up the excitement that the film failed to achieve in the first hour.
While not taking the credit away, Cameron manages to totally suck us into his world, just as we do when donning augmented reality (AR) glasses. There is tremendous fear, along with a thirst to hate mankind for its own selfishness, which keeps the film going. At one point in time, it is quite disturbing to see that humans, in whatever form or incarnation, only know how to commit genocide because “the money’s on them.”
Avatar: The Way of Water can also be called a nostalgia trip, with Cameron summarizing his four-decade-long journey as a filmmaker. We see Piranha, Terminator, Abyss, Aliens, Titanic (see the climax) and of course Avatar. The 192-minute journey is both intriguing and distracting. But perhaps because I, too, am a “water baby” like Cameron, the world attracted me more and more as the film progressed.
This time, Sam Worthington is in full Na’vi avatar, but his voice is loud enough to make him heard and to show that only his words matter. So does Zoe Saldana, who owns this character like no one else can. He is a delight and once again one of the show-stealers. It was heartbreaking to watch Sigourney Weaver’s character, Dr. Grace Augustine, die in the first installment. But we see her as Kirie, the eldest and adopted daughter of Jake and Neytiri.
You wait with bated breath for Kate Winslet to make a grand entrance after a certain amount of time. However, he has been the most overbearing and underutilized character in the entire film. It was mostly like she came and went, but it’s unrealistic to expect her to make an impact. Hopefully more can be expected in the next two installments.
The kids mostly talk like gangstas, which is kind of sloppy in terms of dialogues and is actually one of the major drawbacks of the film. It’s kind of rudimentary and makes the whole narrative more of a satire than a factional reality that it aspires to be.
Verdict: Avatar; The Way of Water is a flawed film, but you won’t take your eyes off the visual treat of the ocean world. Let the passion for water continue, but with a story that is hopefully never seen before.