I'm Blue Im a Da Ba Dee- 'Avatar: The Way of Water'

 

Now, now, Avatar: The Way of Water was 3 hours 12 minutes long- do not worry this review won't be that long.

Sort of felt like I not only had to go see the well waited for Avatar sequel and that I'd have to write about it. You could argue just due to the huge budget, hype and box office success to achieve it is the biggest film of 2022; can't really say I have a film blog if I didn't write about it. First I want to just set the scene for all my opinions I am going to dump below- when 'Avatar' came out I was eight, sooooo no I did not see it back in 2009. I can't actually remember when I saw it for the first time but it was definitely in the cinema, my memories of liking it are vague and I definitely only saw it once. Like most people at the time it was mostly a visual experience awe experience. The first film literally embodied 'The Pandora Effect', something I recommend reading into if you're not familiar. Going into 'Avatar: The Way of Water' as a viewer I wasn't putting as much pressure on the film as some who had to wait those long nine years so was more just interested to see if it was worth the run time! 

First things first, 'Avatar: The Way of Water' looks incredible. This won't be a shock however I was very pleasantly surprised and just how impressive the visuals are. I read here and there about new technology James Cameron mentioned being developed so the actors could be CGIed under water to create the swimming Navi, what ever that new technology was it fucking works and its brilliant. The film was so crisp and so sexy it is only hard not to watch every single scene wide eyed. With a film delivering so well one visual it puts a lot of pressure on the score, I often consider them two sides of the same coin. The sequel score gets the job done, further creating the atmospheric Pandora experience all viewers know and love when watching Avatar; however I do still prefer James Horner's score for the first film in the franchise. 

My overall summary of why the first one did so well is done to the viewing experience and intensely detailed beautiful world building. Viewers are introduced to Pandora and all of its out of worldly habitats, bioluminescence creatures and spiritual core. This literally cause 'The Pandora Effect'. Therefore anyone with any common sense to them would infer for a sequel to deliver with the great pressure and expectation it should introduce something new to the world, something viewers weren't introduced to in the first. James Cameron is one of those clever folk as he introduced the water world and water-Navi. This repeated the viewer curiosity and exploratory nature of the film as this new world appeared on screen.

The plot of the sequel follows Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington as he lives with his newfound Navi family as they uprooted by the evil sky people! Obviously the film can't solely rely on its gorgeous cinematic experience, it does have to have a story line. The key theme in the sequel is family. This was cute and easy to digest, I was perfectly content with it, if anything happy the world wind of film to experience viewing didn't add in a super complex deep plot line to follow. This is without mentioning all the motifs of human over exploding our earth, violent colonisation of indigenous people and argued over cultural appropriation- I personally having got the time or interest to dive into any of that! Like I said the plot did it for me, I like the addition of a younger generation Navi. Seeing the story line through the perspectives of the children made sense for the franchise, almost giving me a 'House of the Dragon'-esque approach. Saying that, one is for sure, I hated Spider. His character arc was predictable and uncreative, practically shoving a Tarzan into the film for reasons I'm not too sure. I thought his character was cringe, either offering a terrible role for the actor Jack Champion to deliver on, or actor was also rubbish. Take him out and my review would be practically perfect. 

As you can tell, I very much enjoyed the film and overall viewing experience. I did see it first day it came out in a packed cinema- very exciting! I doubt I will be rewatching it soon (unless I've got over 3 hours to kill and a high quality sound surround set up) but I recommend seeing the once in cinema... even if to say you've seen it. Feel like its one of those ones people ask if you've seen. 

Evie 20 December 2022