Avatar: The Way of Water: Worth A Watch, If Only Once

Avatar was notable in 2009 for one reason: It has (and to this day the 4K restoration still has) outstanding visuals. That said, and it has been lampooned to death at this point, the story is kind of cookie cutter, and the characters are forgettable, however it functions kind of like a tech demo where the story is more of a vehicle to show off the new technology and methods that go into creating next-generation CGI. Avatar: The Way of Water manages to recreate that magic, even if the story is more forgettable than the last and the imagery is only a marginal improvement over recent films with outstanding CGI.

Picking up after Avatar ends, this movie picks up following Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) as they have a growing family. They have three children of their own and have adopted Kiri who was somehow born of Grace’s avatar after they attempted to resurrect her (both played by Sigourney Weaver), and “Spider” who is antagonist Miles Quaritch’s son who was left behind on Pandora because he was too young to go into cryostasis or some other science fiction contrivance. The humans had left at the end of the last film and now are back with Navi bodies and are ready to turn Pandora into their new home as Earth is dying. Without spoiling too much further, events happen that force Jake and his family to relocate from the mountains where they have made their home to the islands on the ocean as refugees.

By using the refugee storyline, it allows for Avatar: The Way of Water to rethread some of the elements of the first that worked and created a vehicle for the audience and characters to sit in awe of the beauty of Pandora. On a first view, the lengthy sequences show off the sea life and the various changes within the different Na’vi based on where they live. That said, a lot of the plot elements either do not go anywhere or are repeated multiple times which may impact repeated viewing. To this end, Neytiri is underserved in the movie and has very little to do besides be defined in her role as parent which feels like a criminal underutilization of the character.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kiri is simultaneously used too much and not enough. The identity of her father is played as a mystery, however anyone who has seen any movie at any point in their lives will be able to figure it out pretty quickly. That said, the film goes out of its way to make the viewer think it is not what the painfully obvious choice is while also providing concrete evidence to the contrary which just wastes screen time.

The biggest complaint with this movie is the way the third act unfolds, namely that it consists of a fight in the dark between two Na’vi characters in similar outfits in a hand-to-hand combat situation. Much like Venom it is hard to keep track of who is doing what to who during this sequence and it goes on for a while. The other issue is that every character in the movie is situated to follow the exact narrative thread in the inevitable sequel that one would expect to almost a degree where it takes away the mystery around Avatar 3 that there was for this film following the first one.

Much like its predecessor 12 years ago, Avatar: The Way of Water is a must-see in theaters, despite the narrative issues. The evolution of motion capture underwater and the visuals of the ocean are all so unique and different that it is worth seeing on the biggest screen possible in 3D. While it may clock in over three hours (and over three and a half with trailers), it never feels that long and just flies by, even during the exploration sequences that are a little overlong.

Final Rating: 8/10