Avatar: The Way of Water
Rewatching the first “Avatar” prior to watching his long-in-production first sequel, I think I appreciated James Cameron’s storytelling talents in that film more than I have previously. Yes, he still has a tin ear for dialogue, but he understands economic narratives and character building as well as any filmmaker in history. Once I realized that, I couldn’t wait for more Pandora.
Watching “The Way of Water,” I felt like I was in the hands of a master truly unleashed. I think the last time I experienced that on a film of this level was with John Woo’s “Red Cliff,” whether it’s the truncated American version theatrically in 2009 or the two-part original version on disc in 2020. Cameron has told a truly self-contained narrative that uses montage and exposition to orient ourselves to the world he’s put around Jake Sully this time out. Yes, it’s very much a sequel, but most importantly, we’ve seen a complete narrative unfold. In a time when it seems like films just exist to set up the next one, we’re left with a definitive ending place in “The Way of Water,” but also enough to bait the hook for another film. Few filmmakers do that better than Cameron.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is as simple-minded a character as Cameron has ever written. In the first film, he was a former marine who just happened to be able to utilize his scientist brother’s Na’vi avatar, and found himself reborn by coming to understand the Na’vi, and falling in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a chief’s daughter. It’s a very straightforward arc, and that’s what Cameron specializes in, whether it’s with a woman chased by a terminator, deep-sea drillers encountering something unusual, a terminator itself, or star-crossed lovers on the Titanic. Here, Jake has grown a family with Neytiri, and his arc is not only protecting that family, but what that protection means. When mankind returns to Pandora after being sent off world at the end of the first film, and a familiar antagonist (Quaritch, played once again by Stephen Lang) returns in an unfamiliar body (he’s now in the body of a Na’vi avatar), Jake must take his family away for the safety of the clan, and Pandora itself.
This film follows the basic structure of “The Empire Strikes Back” so much it should be criminal, but the script by Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (the latter two of whom wrote “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”) makes “The Way of Water” less about Jake’s journey and more about his kids. He and Neytiri have two sons- Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton)- and one daughter, Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), together, as well as act as guardians to Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), whom was miraculously born of Grace’s avatar. The two most significant of those kids are Lo’ak and Kiri. Lo’ak has always been in his older brother’s shadow, and Neteyam is the golden child in Jake’s eyes while Lo’ak is the screw-up. That dynamic plays out predictably as the Sully family goes into hiding with the Metkayina people, who live on the sea. The chief there is Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), and he to has a wife (played by Kate Winslet) and children; if the Sully family are going to stay there, they must learn the ways of living with the sea (hence the subtitle). This brings me to Kiri, and when I first heard who Weaver was playing, I was curious as to how that was going to work. Cameron makes it work beautifully, because Kiri is an extension of Grace, so she has Grace’s fascination with Pandora as a living, breathing ecosystem, and a connection to Eywa that is profound. Weaver is enjoying this character, and this might be one of the most genuinely engaging “messiah” characters someone has created in a long time.
Family and fatherhood is a vital part of “The Way of Water.” Also part of Sully’s family is Spider (Jack Champion), a human child left behind when humanity was forced to leave because babies are not able to go into cryo. Jake is someone who sees the bond with the rest of the family and is comfortable having Spider be part of them. Neytiri only sees a man, and is skeptical. It turns out Spider is Quaritch’s son- because of course he is, for reasons never explained- and that tension makes for a big part of the narrative in simplistic terms, which means it’s important, but doesn’t really have a lot of weight, in part because, we know who Quaritch is- he doesn’t really value life the same way Jake does.
It’s remarkable how epic Cameron has made the world of Pandora. In the first film, our introduction to the world is built on scale, from the villages of the Na’vi to Home Tree and the creatures of Pandora. It was very much a contained story, but a vast world. The idea that he is taking us to an entirely new part of Pandora, one that exists on the same planet, is breathtaking, as is his worldbuilding. His obsession with water, and filmmaking under water, has been clear since “The Abyss,” and even then, what he does here in creating not only credible underwater scenes, but dynamic ones, is enough to put this as one of the great adventure epics of all-time. His reason for taking so long with these films is simple- he is a filmmaker who doesn’t take short cuts to create his worlds, and to make us believe them. This is as intricately crafted a world as we’ll ever see in film.
Composer Simon Franglen was a collaborator of James Horner’s, so when Horner died in 2015, Franglen adapted when Horner had written for Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven” into a lovely final statement in the great composer’s career. By tapping Franglen for “The Way of Water,” Cameron is asking the composer to do the same thing, working with Horner’s ideas, but this time adding his own. I’ll be honest- I think “Avatar” has become one of my favorite Horner scores, and I think “The Way of Water” is very derivative, but there are moments during the action scenes that are riveting in the same way Horner created, but show Franglen bringing his own voice to things. I cannot wait to hear where he takes the world of Pandora next, from a musical standpoint.
At this point, James Cameron will basically be taking us to Pandora, time and again, for the next decade, and honestly? You better get used to it, because the self-proclaimed “king of the world” continues to understand his audience, and why they ultimately love this world. I’m now prepared to say, bring it on.
