Avatar: The Way of Water Review

Reel Rating: 8.6/10 | 4-min read | Rated PG

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ‘AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER’

From left to right: Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Bailey Bass and Britain Dalton as Jake Sully, Neytiri, Tsireya and Lo’ak in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

James Cameron has done it again! Avatar: The Way of Water is not only another cinematic triumph for Cameron but a well-justified sequel that exceeds enough expectations to fill that 13-year gap between the first and second film. The highly anticipated sequel is a nostalgic dive back into the amazing world of Pandora and is nothing short of becoming yet another pop culture phenomenon for Cameron. The only question is…just where do we take this story next?

Wow…that’s all I could say for the first 30 minutes of The Way of Water, and 3.5 hours later, I still didn’t want it to be finished. Maybe I’m a little nervous it will go on another 13-year hiatus 😂 I went to see the long-awaited sequel with pretty open expectations and having just watched Avatar (2009) again for the first time in years, I was surprisingly optimistic to see where this story was going next. Safe to say; James Cameron doesn’t miss from the deep end.

The film begins with a quick 15-year time-lapse that introduces the family Jake & Neytiri have created, if you were simply basing the ageing off of the parents, you wouldn’t think anytime has passed at all. I would definitely recommend rewatching the first film prior to seeing this, it really helped with my viewing experience and it’s a great reminder of how much higher Cameron has raised the bar with this sequel.

Sigourney Weaver (above) as Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

A lot of my love for this film stems from discovering the passion and work that went into it. I watched some BTS clips and the fact that the actors learned free diving to shoot these underwater scenes with motion capture technology, something that has never been attempted before on any other film and is a feat beyond anything I can fathom for the sake of a movie. The shots that you see in the final product, are an exact reflection of all the hard work that went into it. The Way of Water is beautiful, especially its underwater sequences. I loved how much attention James Cameron paid to showing the different ecosystems that live under the sea, you can tell that he has spent a lot of time exploring the depths of the ocean from his days on Titanic (1996) and continues to do so to this day.

Avatar: The Way of Water is, in a way, everything that it needed to be, and should not be taken for granted in any way. It would be conceited of us to sit in our chairs as reviewers and discredit years worth of hard work that has evidently paid off on screen. Based on its visuals alone Avatar would earn an 8/10 and the rest of the score is just made up from a great divergence of story.

Trinity Jo-Li Bliss (above) as Tuk in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Highlight of the Film: Amazing Cinematography & VFX

To say that I was blown away by the visuals would be a disservice to both James Cameron and the incredibly overworked VFX teams that have created what I can say without challenge is; the best special effects I have ever seen. The Way of Water actually looks so good that it has to be fake. I even went as far as to get all nit-picky looking for things wrong with it, and still couldn’t do anything other than bask in the beauty of this imaginary world. Maybe it’s because I had just watched the first film in preparation, but this is a truly night-and-day comparison to the original from 2009. I would also be lying if I said that I expected anything less after a decade-long wait. This doesn't change the fact that the characters, the environment, and the action were all perfectly designed. This film propelled my interpretation of the technological capabilities of motion capture, which are seemingly infinite. If you compare how we’ve seen it utilized as of late in Marvel, what you see in The Way of Water is nothing short of miraculous.

The creative scope to be able to visualize and create a world like this is beyond my understanding and very fascinating as an aspiring filmmaker. If Avatar somehow loses any Best Visual Effects awards it will be blatant robbery. Seriously, one more round of applause to the VFX teams that work their butts off for Disney, the cinematic breakthroughs they’ve made are incredible and deserve far more than 2 seconds of recognition in the credits. I pray for them on this alleged 9-hour cut of Avatar 3 😂

From left to right: Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, and Sam Worthington in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

One Big Family: Amazing New Additions to Cast

The central theme of this series is definitely family. Just as the first film was all about finding your true family, The Way of Water is all about protecting that family. The Avatar sequel uses every one of its 3hr12min runtimes to establish this emotional and deep-rooted relationship between characters the audience only met a few hours ago. At first I thought Cameron would just pick up where they left off and ignore the real-life decade-long gap between films, so I was very happy with how they approached this, and how well the kids were incorporated into the story. Big credit to the child actors and casting department, the kids didn’t piss me off, which is a huge win in my books.

I’m very interested in this story they’re building for the character of Kiri, a child spawn of Sigourney Weaver’s Avatar from the first film, who is also interestingly voiced by Sigourney Weaver in The Way of Water. While we get to see a lot of her character in this film there’s still so much left up to mystery. Like who was her father? What does her connection to Awa mean? And when will she need to connect to the tree of life again? So many questions that we need the answers to!

This may be a testament to the sheer scale of this story but Avatar will unapologetically push some characters to the background if they aren’t serving a direct purpose to the current story. We saw a lot less of Neytiri this time around, I suspect this had to do with Zoe Saldana filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but her absence didn’t have the same negative effect on a film as other movies that have weirdly left integral characters out of sequels. This just speaks to how large this story really is that James Cameron is trying to tell, if you didn't see a bunch of certain characters in this film, I have no doubt they’ll more than make up those minutes in subsequent sequels.

Zoe Saldana (left) as Sam Worthington (right) as Neytiri and Jake Sully in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Keeping the Audience Engaged: A Cumulative Third Act

James Cameron has truly nailed the skill of shooting a sinking boat lol. That final action sequence, albeit acknowledging itself as being slightly repetitive, was a phenomenal final sequence to the film. At this point, I was still amazed at how sharp and clear the VFX was. The film should receive tremendous praise for not losing my attention in 3.5 hours. This is an extremely hard thing to do, especially given that I was in my theatre until nearly 2 am.

When it comes to cinematic experiences like Avatar, I really don’t mind these 3-hour runtimes. For what is the point of the movie theatre experience other than to briefly escape reality? You want to stay in this world as long as possible, and Cameron’s direction has no problem keeping you there. Part of that has to come down to how real the stakes are. Every action sequence was very aware of itself, at no point were characters overextending themselves in ways that didn’t seem believable of them. But most of all it’s just a joy to watch a film that ties up the stories it opens. Almost every detail that Cameron spent time on in the lead-up was utilized in the final sequence. And whatever plots were left open, were done so intentionally.

Sam Worthington (left), Kate Winslet (centre), and Cliff Curtis (right) as Jake Sully, Ronal, and Tonowari in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Where does Avatar go from here? Do we really need 3 more sequels?

The biggest question that I have about these Avatar films is; what’s with the incessant need for all these sequels? There was so much faith in this series that it was greenlit for 5 sequels back in 2012, and they continue to make them as if how the audience receives them will not affect whether they get made or not. Yet every time I reach the end of one of these films I could say, yup, awesome, and they live happily ever after…so why do we need Avatar 3, 4, and 5? Where is this story going?

Avatar doesn’t seem like a cinematic universe like Marvel or Harry Potter that is leading towards a faceoff with the big bad. The bad is big, and it’s already here. At the same time, I also hope that it doesn’t follow the stream with franchises like Star Wars or Jurassic Park, where you’re bad continues to return, just slightly bigger.

The Duffer brothers who write the infamous show Stranger Things talked about the need for a fitting conclusion in a well-written series, and how just because your movie or show is popular doesn't make it averse to overstaying its welcome. And if the Terminator series has shown us anything, it’s that James Cameron will continue making sequels until the day he dies if given the chance. The third film will have to include a distinct signal as to why we should stick around for this 5-picture story. I mean how many times can the sky people come back before they realize this is just a losing effort?

At least they introduced the value of the Tulkan juice? sperm? I don’t know what we’re calling it, but its worth enough that the sky people likely won’t leave it be. They did lightly show us these visions that Avatars experience when connected to the tree of life, and especially for the character of Kiri, I’m definitely intrigued as to where that storyline is going. What will be the drawback of Kiri not being able to connect with the tree again? Will this storyline explain why they opted to have kids play the other characters and adult Sigourney Weaver play Kiri? Though are these cliffhangers enough of a reason to see Avatar 3? I’m not so sure, which means James Cameron will need to come back with something crazy up his sleeve.

The Future of Streaming: Avatar 3’s Hybrid Story?

James Cameron recently did a Directors on Directors interview with Variety, where he spoke with fellow director, Denis Villeneuve, about his views on the future of cinema in this new streaming age. He proposed the idea of a simultaneous release of two movies. One is the theatrical cut, which is the most condensed, yet “entertaining” version of the film. And the other is a streaming cut, which would be longer in length but rich with the details you would only find in a novel. Personally, I love this idea and believe that James Cameron is one of the only filmmakers other than Peter Jackson who can do it on this scale. And after experiencing how much this planet of Pandora has to offer, I’d be more than happy to see this creative vision play out for Avatar 3.

Cameron has already said that Avatar 3 is finished filming and they are underway shooting the fourth instalment. This news can hopefully calm viewers that there will be a quicker turnaround for this next film. The question will be, without having the shock factor benefit of the incredible technological improvement in The Way of Water, how will Avatar step up in other ways to wow its audience?

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I watched this film in UltraAVX, though for the best viewing experience I would totally recommend going for the IMAX or 4DX screening if it’s available at your theatre.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy this film as much as I did! And check out more new movie reviews on our website here