Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver
Intro:
Those who loved the original will see their years-long patience rewarded plentifully, while those who were underwhelmed or maybe even hated the original will be in for one hell of a surprise.
Few filmmakers have as enviable a track record with sequels as James Cameron. With Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, he managed to take what were already quality films and build on them into the kind of material that has permanent residency in ‘greatest films of all time’ discussions.
What happens when he directs that energy towards what has become one of the most beloved, overrated, and overhated films of the 21st century? Well, you get Cameron going three-for-three on superior sequels.
For the first time since T2, Cameron has gotten help in the writers’ room, here in the form of husband-and-wife duo Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Mulan, Jurassic World). They have ample experience with humanising nature and giving Wētā FX fertile ground to work from; and it is astonishing just how much that pedigree ends up boosting the dramatic stakes in the film. Astonishing because what’s been added isn’t even that grand, and yet with just a bit of dialogue here or a well-blocked movement there, characters that were underwhelmingly flat in the original are given dimension, depth, and most importantly, a reason for the viewer to be invested in what happens to them.
From the starting points – giving Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) a brain, Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang) a heart, and Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) oodles of paternal courage – the aspects of environmental connection are vastly improved.
A good chunk of the film looks like a nature documentary – showing both the daily lives of the Na’vi tribes and the vastness of the marine life. Refined through the newfound focus on familial and interpersonal connections, what came across as pretense in the original – how intertwined the life on Pandora is – becomes emotionally and spiritually super-charged here. To the extent where the best character in the film isn’t a Na’vi, or a human, but a giant alien whale.
While the characterisation for the new characters is familiar to stories about large families, the banter between them keeps even the less visually intense moments engaging. Sigourney Weaver as the teenaged Kiri is almost unbelievable in how well she fits the character, and Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss as her brothers and sister are also highlights. The only real contrivance is Jack Champion as the Jonnie-from-Battlefield-Earth-looking human Spider. And yet even he adds a lot to the found-family angle of the main story, further driving home how flexible our capacity for meaningful connections can be.
Avatar: The Way of Water is the sequel that Avatar deserves to have in all the best ways. Those who loved the original will see their years-long patience rewarded plentifully, while those who were underwhelmed or maybe even hated the original will be in for one hell of a surprise. The sequel king has done it again, satisfyingly expanding on all that salivating potential for his Pandora-centric universe. The film once again breaking new ground for CGI technology is almost beside the point, next to how much stronger the story it’s supporting has become.
