As the sequel to the biggest box office success of all time, Avatar, a return to the big screen by director James Cameron after a(nother) long absence, and a return to the ground-breaking and awe-inspiring world of Pandora, The Way of Water comes with multiple expectations. Laser projection 3D and the further development of performance capture technology, combined with an industrial imperative to surpass the success of the original, means that the film carries further significance for its producers and distributors.
Return proves to be a major pleasure of the film. There are returning characters Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), as well as Moat (CCH Pounder), Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) and Max Patel (Dileep Rao), while returning performers Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang appear in (literally) different forms. Within the narrative, humans return to Pandora with the goal of terraforming the moon into a new home for the human race. Cameron delivers an environmental message as giant spaceships landing in the forests of Pandora incinerate trees, animals and Na’Vi homes like paper. The film’s first act then depicts the Na’vi’s resistance against the invaders, until a special forces squad goes on the hunt for Jake. This prompts Jake, Neytiri and their four children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), Kiri (Weaver) and Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), to leave the Omaticaya jungle clan and travel to the ocean clan Metkayina, where they must learn the titular way of water. But before long, the special forces find the Sullys and declare oceanic war.
The wide range of characters is a departure from the previous film and from Cameron’s oeuvre as a whole. This can be credited to the various writers of the film, Cameron sharing screenplay duties with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, and these three sharing story credits with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. These multiple voices are complemented by several central characters, including Jake, Lo’ak, and Kiri as well as Spider (Jack Champion) and Quaritch (Lang). The individual arcs of these figures cross over without necessarily supporting each other, which leads to the film feeling overstuffed and frustratingly unfocused. While family is a prominent concern, the different threads that explore what family can mean are often disparate and disjointed.
The first film was criticised by some for being anti-capitalist and anti-American while others condemned its idealised portrayal of indigenous people. The sequel may attract similar responses due to its simplistic presentation of both indigenous culture and capitalist exploitation. But more intriguingly, the film is consistently interested in how we see others.
More unified is the visual spectacle, as the film manifests a marine environment of tactile beauty and exquisite design. The second act evokes wonder and delight as the viewer marvels at the aquatic environment along with the Sully family’s learning. A standout is the tulkun, whale-like creatures that allow for an overt parallel with whaling and a treatise on non-violence. This creates an unsatisfying thematic tension in the film as it tries to balance a pacificist ideology with the demands of the action movie genre. The film’s third act rewards generic expectations with a sustained action sequence that echoes Cameron’s earlier works, but the inevitability of the action makes the pacifist claims from earlier ring hollow. The movie is therefore overstuffed with ideas and plot lines as well as characters. Indeed, the film might have benefitted from being shorter and more focused, or it could have been two films. The overall result is unbalanced and unwieldy, if still enthralling and spectacular.
Politically, the film is likely to prompt various responses. The first film was criticised by some for being anti-capitalist and anti-American while others condemned its idealised portrayal of indigenous people. The sequel may attract similar responses due to its simplistic presentation of both indigenous culture and capitalist exploitation. But more intriguingly, the film is consistently interested in how we see others. Early on, subtitles fade away as the speech of Na’Vi characters becomes English and the blue aliens become more human. Similarly, Quaritch must adapt to a new form, his obsession with the Na’Vi reminiscent of John Wayne in The Searchers. The children of Jake and Neytiri encounter prejudice amongst the youth of the Metkayina due to being different. Kiri, Spider and Lo’ak especially struggle with being outsiders, caught between cultures, parental expectations and indeed species. Furthermore, the relationship between Na’Vi and tulkun shows inter-species harmony, and harmonisation works as the unifying concept of The Way of Water.
Perhaps ironically in a film of so many disparate parts, learning the way of water expresses harmonisation with one’s physical, social and spiritual environment. Just as the Sullys must harmonise with their new home, so must the viewers and humanity at large learn to harmonise with our environment rather than destroying it. The open ending of the film suggests the importance of water in later sequels, and perhaps the other themes and narrative currents of this choppy second chapter will flow together in the further development of this modern mythology.
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER IS PLAYING IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE
