Movie Thoughts: Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

 

• Released: December 16, 2022
• Directed by: James Cameron
  
• Running time: 3 h 12 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

Jake Sully and his family become hunted by the Sky People years after the events of the first movie. To stay safe, they join a clan of sea-Na'vi where his children have trouble fitting in, all the while the Sky People are still tracking them down.

My Thoughts

I do like the first Avatar movie. I don't think it's fantastic or anything, but it does look great and I love the world they created for it. I'm less of a fan of some of the characters and the white savior aspect of it, but overall I do have a good time watching the first movie.

In this newly-released sequel, the Sullys are being hunted by the now-returned Sky People, led by a cloned avatar version of Quaritch. The family soon finds out about this and they travel far to a different clan of Na'vi that live by the sea, where they'll all have to learn to respect their customs and fit in, something that's especially hard for the children Lo'ak and Kiri. Quaritch will never give up until he sees Jake dead, and the safety of the seaside clan is at stake because of the Sullys' presence.

I mean, it was a good movie. Not groundbreaking and I don't think it surpasses the first one, but I still thought it was solid. The effects and animation looks fantastic (even better than the first, with a decade of technology improving), the creature designs are cool and unique, the last hour was a super intense climax of so much action, the change of setting was welcome and I liked Kiri and Lo'ak as characters, I found them both to be relatable.

Now for the things I didn't think worked as well. First: the repetition. While I of course welcome the different setting of this movie, it also felt like a lot of it was recycling from the first movie. The Sky People are once again the main villains colonizing and hunting down the Na'vi, and once again the main villain is Quaritch. I'm going to be honest, I've always thought that Quaritch was one of the weakest elements of the first movie with him being a very forgettable villain, so I'm not too happy they brought him back (and it looks like he'll be returning for the third movie as well). A new, stronger villain would've worked better here in my opinion.

Also: the movie felt a bit unfocused. There are a lot of characters and plot threads that are introduced early (and sometimes late) into the movie that it is trying to balance. The main plot is of course the Sullys fleeing from the Sky People, but there's also the subplots of Kiri finding out her heritage and connection to Eywa, Lo'ak struggling with living in his father's and older brother's shadows and bonding with a whale-like creature (tulkun), the tulkun hunting in general, Spider and his arc of getting to know his father and choosing whose side he's on... It's a lot and, while the movie has a long running time, it just felt a bit unbalanced with how much time was spent on certain subplots. For example, the tulkun-hunting subplot was introduced relatively late into the movie, while Kiri's subplot about finding out where she's from and what her powers are was set up early in the film but doesn't get a resolution yet at all. In the middle portion of the movie we also spend like 45 minutes to an hour with just the Sullys and don't cut to any other plot threads, which is a bit long in my opinion. Doesn't feel fully balanced.

I also thought that the death of Neteyam, the oldest Sully child, was really predictable. I already had a feeling that one of the four youngest Sullys was going to bite the dust this movie, and out of them Neteyam was the prime candidate because he was pretty much the perfect son with not a lot of room for character growth. He also just didn't seem interesting to follow, unlike Lo'ak and Kiri who each have their own struggles. And Tuk is the youngest girl and I didn't think they'd kill her off. So Neteyam being the one who dies was just so predictable. They could've circumvented this by writing prior scenes differently or something, but this didn't work for me. It didn't hit emotionally at all because I saw it coming from a mile away.

Overall a good movie, though. It just has some issues with its focus and pacing and I could've done with less recycled elements from the first movie.