Director Report Card: James Cameron (2022)

12. Avatar: The Way of Water

When "Avatar" came out in 2009, it was the culmination of nearly a decade's worth of work for James Cameron. Following the sci-fi epic's record shattering box office performance, the sequel would take a similarly long path to the big screen. It has been twelve years since audiences last visited Pandora. Cameron would often provide updates on the sequels – four in total, supposedly – but it sometimes seemed like these projects would never arrive in theaters. In all that time, it became increasingly common to point out that "Avatar," in spite of its massive success, seemingly left no cultural impact. Was a tetralogy of follow-ups, each coming with a massive price tag of their own, going to be worth the effort at all? 

It was, I think, a response with some merit. The "Avatar" extended universe is composed entirely of an admittedly cool theme park area, a Cirque du Soliel stage show, and a single video game. There have been no "Avatar" comic books, Saturday morning cartoon shows, anime spin-offs, or extensive literature. There are no "Avatar" fan conventions that I'm aware of, nor did I ever see a kid trick-or-treating as Jake Sully. The action figures ended up in the bargain bins and Sam Worthington did not become a huge star, in spite of an honest campaign to make him one. While tweets pointing out the lack of "Avatar" fanfiction are designed for mockery, it is curious that "Avatar" became a "Star Wars"-level success without spawning a similarly intense "Star Wars"-like fan base. 

All of this speculation proved to be beside the point. "Avatar: The Way of Water" immediately became a huge hit. The sequel is showing strong legs at the box office and will probably become the first movie to gross three billion dollars. There may not be much lingering footprint of the film's impact but the fact of the matter is that audiences love "Avatar." Clearly, a lot of people couldn't wait to return to Pandora. I never doubted that, as I'm not stupid enough to bet against Jim Cameron. Yet the sequel's release has reignited the debate over the franchise's merits and what it means in our increasingly crowded blockbuster marketplace. 

Cameron, smartly, does not expect viewers to remember every detail of the first "Avatar's" plot. He begins with a lengthy refresher and moves the story ahead fifteen years. In that time, Jake Sully – a human living full time in a lab-grown alien body – has continued to lead the jungle Na'vi tribes on Pandora. He has fathered three children with Neytiri: The brave Neteyam, awkward middle son Lo'ak, and youngest daughter Tuk. They've also adopted two more: Kiri, the mysterious daughter of Dr. Grace Augustine's Avatar, and a human boy nicknamed Spider. Spider is the son of deceased soldier Miles Quaritch, whose memories have been uploaded into a new Avatar Na'vi body. The reborn Quaritch leads a mission to capture Sully and his family, who have continued guerrilla raids against the human colonization of Pandora. Fearing for the tribe's safety, Jake and his brood flee to the oceans of Pandora. They attempt to integrate themselves among the sea-dwelling Na'vi tribes, where Lo'ak bonds with the massive whale-like creatures the locals share a special connection with. Yet Quaritch and his men, alongside a group of human whalers, are in hot pursuit.

“The Way of Water,” more than anything else, strikes me as a movie about responsibility. All throughout the story, Jake Sully is gripped with uncertainty about how to do the right thing. He wants to protect his tribe, his extended family. Yet the safety of his wife and children weighs heavily on him most of all. Meanwhile, the Sully kids are asked to act responsibility while integrating into a new community. They must respect customs that are strange to them and figure out the delicate social boundaries of these strangers. All of these ideas dovetail with a theme of environmental responsibility as well. The Na’vi must protect their world from those that seek to senselessly exploit it, to maintain a balance and ensure a future for their children. “The Way of Water” concerns itself with the things we must do if we are to live in peace and harmony, with those around us and our planet. 

I think part of why James Cameron’s films connect with such a massive audience is because he deals with universal themes, set within simple narratives. The “Terminator” movies are about fate but they are also simple chase films. “Titanic” was an easily understood romance that also tackled relatable ideas of class division. “Avatar’s” western style “going native” storyline existed on the back of environmental ideas. The sequel does this as well but its premise is even more universal. This is a movie about family, about fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters. 

The Sully brood is, in some ways, the classical nuclear family. Jake is an occasionally overbearing father who just wants to do right by his loved ones. Neteyam is seemingly dad’s favorite, the older brother who succeeds in all the areas his siblings struggle with. Lo’ak is the awkward middle brother, desperate to prove himself and earn respect. Tuk is the beloved little sister that everyone wants to protect. Yet “Avatar’s” family is not defined solely by bloodlines. In fact, this is often a story as much about found family and it is traditional families. Spider and Kiri are part of the Sully clan as well, despite their far-flung origins. They are accepted as much as Jake and Neytiri’s kids as their own flesh and blood. 

Dropping five new characters on the audience within “The Way of Water’s” opening minutes threatens to overwhelm us. It does take a little bit of mental bookmarking to remember who is who, especially since the Na'vi all look somewhat similarly. However, I did find myself growing attached to the kids quickly. I especially related a lot to Lo'ak. He's the typical teenage outcast in some ways. The minute he sees the daughter of the reef-dwelling Na'vi clan's chief, he's smitten. Like any adolescent boy seeing a pretty girl. His status as an outsider among this new tribe emphasizes his own isolation within his family. This is why he ends up bonding with Payakan, a misfit member of the whale-like Tulkun creatures that live in the ocean. Honestly, watching this teenage alien make friends with a giant whale monster is one of the most unexpected delights of "The Way of Water." 

If Lo'ak's story will be relatable for kids and overgrown man-children like me, then Jake Sully's plot is obviously designed to appeal to the dads in the audiences. As a former soldier himself, Jake wants to lead his family like a military unit. He repeats the phrase "Sullies stick together" like a jingoistic mantra. He often barks orders at his kids and he seems to expect them to fill roles, like soldiers in a unit. Yet "The Way of Water" ultimately shows that being a dad is more complicated than that. You can't just be driven by a sense of duty. You have to love, nurture, and protect as much as you lead. It's a balance that he struggles to get right all throughout the film.

Parenthood is, of course, a theme that has run through many of Cameron's films. The ideas of motherhood in "Aliens," the Terminator as a surrogate father figure to John Connors and his complicated relationship with his mother in "Terminator 2," and the bordering-on-divorce Trasker couple uniting to save their daughter in "True Lies" are the prior examples. These ideas continue to evolve in "The Way of Water." Jake and Neytiri have to rescue their kids on two separate occasions in the last third of the sequel. At one point, Neytiri – who has probably the least complex arc in the film – becomes an avenging mother of fury, not unlike Ripley or Sarah Connors. Yet this isn't just an escapist fantasy of parental protection. The kids eventually have to save their parents too. Everyone gives in this family. Everyone works together.

The reason, I think, "The Way of Water" has been embraced by the Film Twitter crowd – even though it's a 300-million dollar sequel to the highest grossing movie of all time, backed by the most ravenous of modern studios – is because it's not solely driven by corporate interest. James Cameron is an auteur, who co-writes the movies he directs. He has quirks and obsessions that reoccur throughout his career. In some ways, "The Way of Water" feels like the director mashing his favorite trademarks together. He loves the ocean and diving, so "Avatar 2" is largely set at sea. The last act features a massive ship wreck and the lengthy scenes of the characters trying to escape the inverted hull intentionally recalls "Titanic." Kiri has the "Battle Angel" haircut and a similar, convoluted destiny as a hero before her. Lo'ak feels a little bit like John Connor. The action movie finale, in which the hero fights the villain in a flaming industrial setting, reminds me of "The Terminator" and the many eighties action movies it influenced. (Including "Rambo: First Blood Part II" which Cameron, obviously, wrote.)

The previous Cameron movie "The Way of Water" is most in-dialogue with is "Aliens." The Vietnam-inspired subtext of that film had its space marines as unwitting minions of an evil corporation, devoured by an enemy they underestimated. The space marines of "Avatar" know who they are working for and to what ends. They don't care that their mission is one of imperialistic destruction. Quaritch and his men seem proud of their status as militaristic tools and display a seeming sadistic glee when terrorizing Na'vi villages. The soldiers have been so absorbed into their roles, their statuses as blunt instruments for those in power, that they have literally ceased to be human. 

Quaritch and his men carry with them many visual signatories of macho, military men. They wear camouflage uniforms over their Na’vi bodies. They have tattoos, wear conservative dad sunglasses, and the Vasquez-like female constantly chews and pops bubblegum. It all seems to represent a rejection of nature and an embracing of a less noble lifestyle. Quaritch, played once again by a growling Stephen Lang, seems to be a two dimensional bad guy. He is programmed to pursue Sully and his family endlessly, seeming to regard the film’s hero as practically a race traitor. Yet Cameron does stop to give Quaritch one layer of complexity. He captures Spider early on and, as the essentially the reincarnation of the boy’s father, feels a bond with him. As much as Spider is disgusted by the earthlings’ actions, he can’t help but feel a connection to the commander as well. If “The Way of Water” is a movie about family, then this subplot seems to conclude that familial bonds are complicated. 

Spider’s presence does connect with probably my favorite subplot in “The Way of Water.” While aboard the whaling ship, he befriends Dr. Ian Garvin, a marine biologist staying on the boat as a chance to study the Tulkun. The whalers are capturing and killing these animals, as their brains contain a highly valuable substance that can stop human aging. Garvin has already realized that the Tulkun are an intelligent species, capable of language and complex thought, but he feels powerless to stop the killing. Spider is also often just forced to sit back and watch the chaos. These characters seem to represent humanity's complacency in the destruction of the natural world. They hate it but they don't fight against it either, feeling swept up in a system too big to disrupt.

The film's environmental themes emerge the most through Kiri's subplot. The exact nature of her existence remains a mystery, a plot thread the future sequels will surely expand on. Yet it's not too hard to decipher their meaning. Kiri feels an intrinsic connection to Pandora, to the Life Tree that all Na'vi bonds with. Throughout the film, she discusses a spiritual link she feels with all living things on the planet. On Pandora, every person and animal really is connected. They are all part of a massive living system. We, here on Earth, are too and that's the point Cameron is getting at. We are all part of a global, interconnected web and we all have a part to play in it. Kiri feels how alive that web is and maybe we all should too. 

There's a lot of heady ideas in "The Way of Water." Yet, like the first film, it maybe works best simply as visual spectacle. Cameron created an immersive world in "Avatar" and continues to expand on it here. It's evident that every creature, object, detail, and piece of made-up language we see and hear here had thought out into it. As the camera watches the alien whales swim through the water, or pauses frequently for other extended peeks at Pandora's aquatic wildlife or Na'vi culture, you can't help but be wrapped up in it. Little details, like the anatomical differences between the jungle dwelling Na'vi and the reef colonies, are appreciated. I sometimes feel like a fictional nature documentary about the world of Pandora would be just as compelling as the stories in the "Avatar" movies.

Cameron knows he is making a popcorn movie too though. "The Way of Water" is obviously loaded with action sequences and spectacle. A Na'vi raid on a human supply train is an early action highlight, the alien heroes leaping through the air as they fire massive arrows right through the invaders. The moment Payakan attacks and dismantled the whaling ship has to rank among 2022's most satisfying moments of blockbuster catharsis. And the special effects are seamless too, the life-like CGI truly being on an extraordinary level. I guess I you can continue to complain that most of Pandora's animal life are sci-if chimeras that merely mash up attributes of Earth animals. Like the massive flying water dragons the reef dwellers ride on, which look like combinations of gars and flying fish. Yet it's all so wonderfully brought to life. 

"The Way of Water" has flaws. From time to time, the film adopts a fake, handheld style cinematography, which includes some rough crash zooms, that I find very distracting. The movie starts to feel the weight of its three hour plus runtime during the extended climax. By the time the heroes are trying to escaped an overturned vessel, it felt like an entire extra act had been added to the movie. The cast mostly does everything they need to do. Sigourney Weaver as the teenage Kiri is not as distracting as I heard. Yet I still do wonder sometimes about the appeal of Sam Worthington. He's really trying throughout most of the movie and you can tell he's become a better actor in the decade between "Avatar" movies. Yet his voiceover narration still sounds extremely bored. 

Despite some minor reservations, "Avatar: The Way of Water" is a massive improvement over the first movie. Cameron has cooked a number of themes that are clearly important to him inside of an exciting, visually spectacular sci-if action/adventure. The sequel seems to exist to convince viewers that "Avatar" is a dense enough franchise to support three more movies. It doesn't just do this by introducing a number of subplots for future entries to capitalize on. It puts as much effort as possible in creating a fictional world for us to get invested in. If I went into "The Way of Water" skeptical that a sequel to "Avatar" needed to exist, I came out convinced and interesting in seeing where this expansive story might go next. Though hopefully it doesn't take another twelve years to return to Pandora next time. [Grade: B+]