OSCARS 2023: Nominations and Predictions

Oscar season is here once again. The last two ceremonies have been such outrageous disasters, marked by weirdo pandemic shooting perimeters, bungled attempts to pay homage to fallen talent, disrespectful comedy skits that make it seem like the telecast writers don’t even like movies, and an unprecedented smack in the mouth that people wouldn’t stop talking about for weeks. When combined with the growing disparity between what general audiences actually watch and what critics and industry insiders enjoy, it’s made the Academy Awards seem like an even more questionable enterprise. The broadcast has started to feel like a desperate circus and the question of “Who are these even for?” floats hopelessly in the air. 

Things seem grim but there is hope. Because I know who the Oscars are for. They are for me! And, well, people like me too, those who delight in Academy Award history and pride themselves on watching all the nominees every year. We’re film fans. We love movies and think they are important. I don’t know if the people running the Oscars, or even the Academy voters who decide what’s nominated and what wins, feel that way. The actual outcome is almost besides the point for me. I love the nominees, I love the snubs, I love the glitz and glamour. I love catching up with what Hollywood itself deems the best and brightest of the previous year. I just can’t help it. 

And so the time has come for me to dig into the nominees and give my hopelessly uninformed predictions of who will win. It is time once again.

BEST PICTURE:

In recent years, heavily promoted streaming exclusives with little crossover success and art house darlings have come to dominate the Best Picture race, much to the alienation of your average movie-goer. Maybe there was a deliberate push this year to nominate movies people had actually seen. Blockbuster, crowd pleasers like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” and “Elvis” all scored Best Picture nominations. Of course, these movies were critically acclaimed too, representing a sort of older style spectacle in a big movie landscape increasingly dominated by samey superhero movies. 

This isn’t to say that the usual kind of artsy, streaming releases didn’t place in this category. I doubt the average person on the street has heard of vomit-filled bourgeois satire “Triangle or Sadness.” A fact-based drama about sexual assault like “Women Talking” or a grim German-language war movie like “All Quiet on the Western Front,” currently playing in around a 1000 theaters or buried on Netflix respectively, are not the kind of cinema non-film nerds are invested in. One could argue that nominating movies like this is why the Oscar broadcasts have such low ratings these days.

Mixed in there are what you would define as more typical Oscar movies: Beloved new releases from respected filmmakers. “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Tar,” and “The Fabelmans” come to us from critical darlings and Academy favorites like Martin McDonagh, Todd Fields, and Steven Spielberg. “The Fabelmans” is a love letter to cinema itself, making it a logical choice to win Best Picture. While “The Banshees” is the kind of respectful, middlebrow tragicomedy that I could totally see also winning the top prize. (“Tar” probably won’t win Best Picture, though styling itself after the always buzzy biopic – even though it’s totally fictional – didn’t hurt its chances.)

Yet we live in stranger times than that. Here in 2023, the clear front runner for Best Picture is an extremely quirky, 25-million dollar indie movie that features kung-fu fights, a multiversal comic book plot, hot dog fingers, an interdimensional bagel, and multiple butt plug jokes. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” became the little movie that could last year. Beloved by critics, surprisingly popular with audiences, and hotly debated by the Film Twitter set, this unlikely movie seems to be the predicted fave to walk away with Hollywood’s top honor this year. Honestly, I’ll be a little surprised if that comes to past. I can see the older Academy voters skewing things in “The Banshees of Inisherin” or “The Fabelmans’” direction but, for now… 

OFFICIAL PREDICTIONS:

Probably “Everything Everywhere All at Once” 

BEST ACTOR:

The Academy loves nothing more than a comeback story. Brendan Fraser was, for a brief glorious period, a box office attraction who never quite got the respect he deserved critically. He slowly disappeared from the spotlight for years before the sad reasons for this made him an internet favorite. The Brendan Fraser redemption arc has been brewing for years and seems to be headed for its expected climax, with the actor winning an Oscar for Darren Afronofsky’s buzzy indie drama “The Whale…” Except “The Whale” has been critically divisive, with mixed reviews and accusations of fatphobia and being a miserable slog. Will this backlash be enough to cost Fraser his Oscar?

I don’t think so, namely because Fraser doesn’t have any real competition. The closest challenger is Colin Farrell, in “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Farrell is a respected performer and seems likely to win an Oscar someday. Yet there’s not much heat behind his campaign this year. Austin Butler might’ve been a front runner in a different year, as “Elvis” has many of the hallmarks of your typical Oscar success story. But Butler seems too new to the business to already be deemed a winner and people seem divided in whether his performance is great or goofy.

Rounding up the docket are two performers who are unlikely to win but I’m happy to see them anyway. Bill Nighy in “Living” represents a long-working character actor finally getting some love from the Academy for some random British movie I had never even heard of until a few days ago. Paul Mescal in “Aftersun,” meanwhile, really seemed like a long shot to me until this morning. I would’ve guess that movie was too indie and low-key for the Academy. I guess A24’s campaign budget this year must’ve been enormous. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Brendan Fraser for “The Whale” 

BEST ACTRESS:

Best Actress is maybe the most interesting of the big categories this year. There’s a compelling narrative behind almost all the nominees here. My favorite of which revolves around Andrea Risenborough. “To Leslie” is a tiny, not widely seen indie that was seemingly on nobody’s lips at the end of last year. Yet the people who did see “To Leslie” were other actresses, who were apparently blown away. A campaign led by Kate Winslet and multiple other high-profile performers to get Risenborough a nomination for the obscure film was a success. Honestly, seeing the established names in a field use their influence to shine a spotlight on a less well-known name is very touching to me.

It’s a great story but Risenborough still seems like a long-shot to win. Months back, Cate Blanchette seem to solidify her chances of winning her third Oscar for “Tar.” Not much has changed in the weeks that have followed and Blanchette is still among the most talked about nominees. Lydia Tar is exactly the kind of difficult, multifaceted character that Academy voters love. 

Yet there is a certain degree of unpredictability in this year’s nominees. Years of incredible work has taken Michelle Yeoh from a cult favorite to a beloved, international icon. If the Academy loved “Everything Everywhere All at Once” so much that they made it the most nominated movie of the year, it stands to reason that the actress the entire film is a loving tribute to has a good chance at winning. 

And that would be great, but there’s another Michelle to consider. Michelle Williams has proven herself to be among the most versatile and talented performers in Hollywood. She’s been nominated for an Oscar five times previously. Her performance in “The Fabelmans” is clearly a highlight of that movie. In a less competitive year, she probably would’ve been a lock. Now, she seems like a probable runner-up.

Rounding out the list is a nominee I really didn’t expected. Ana de Armas was slotted into the Oscar race early on for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde.” After people actually saw the controversial movie, and it received a critical pummeling, her chances at getting a nod seemed slim. Yet something about de Armas’ performance might’ve impressed the Academy as they did nominated her. (Likely pushing out expected nominees like Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler.) This has caused the widely disliked “Blonde” to earn the coveted title of this year’s Villain Movie at the Oscars. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Probably Cate Blanchette in “Tar,” though I’m rooting for Yeoh. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

If Fraser is the main comeback story of this year's Oscar season, a no less unexpected turn has been Ke Huy Quan's path to award season gold. Watching the eighties child actor get a great role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was delightful. Seeing him grab multiple statues along the way has been even better. Will he win the Oscar as well?

The odds seem to favor him, though the former Short Round does have some stiff competition. Brendan Gleeson is a beloved character actor who has been giving fine performances for years. A win for “The Banshees of Inisherin” would be a fitting achievement atop his entire career. Barry Keoghan is also nominated for the same movie and seems to have the stand-out role in the film. He's similarly been stacking up award seasons wins. It certainly seems probable that either of these two could take home the Oscar.

Rounding out the category is Judd Hirsch in “The Fabelmans,” in the kind of wise mentor role that the Academy simply loves. The real surprise in this category was Brian Tyree Henry in “Causeway,” a movie that had all but disappeared from the award season chatter. I had honestly forgotten about that one and certainly didn't expect a nomination. I don't think either of those guys have a shot at winning though.

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

While I can totally see Gleeson or Keoghan winning, I'm hopeful Ke Huy Quan gets it.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: 

Best Supporting Actress is the main category this year without much in the way of a major front runner. Kerry Condon has been raking up nominations and many wins all throughout the award season. In a more normal Oscar year, she would probably win. And she still has a good chance at it. 

However, this is an odd category this year. “Everything Everywhere All At Once” has earned two supporting nods, for Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu. While I love that Curtis is finally an Oscar nominee, I'm surprised it's for a simple role like this. Hsu has the juicier part and there's a feeling in my bones that she might just get it. Meanwhile, Hong Chau has definitely earned some strong notices for “The Whale” as well.

Yet we can't forget that the Academy voters frequently loves to give awards to honor whole careers and make up for missed opportunities. Though the  Slap has eclipsed in terms of notoriety, I bet some Academy members are still feeling the sting of the 2021 broadcast's biggest gaff: Building the entire emotional climax of the show around Chadwick Boseman winning Best Actor... Only for someone else to win instead. Since “Black Panther 2” is an entire movie built around carrying the weight of Boseman's loss, and Angela Basset does the majority of the Capital A Acting in that one, she has emerged as the favorite to win here. And who says superhero movies aren't cinema?

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

I still feel like Condon may pull off a surprise win here but Angela Basset seems like the safest bet. 

BEST DIRECTOR:

In the history of the Oscars, duos have incredibly strong odds in the Best Director category. Only two teams have been nominated before – Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins in 1962, for “West Side Story,” and the Coen brothers in 2008, for “No Country for Old Men” – and both won. This seems to shine brightly on Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as “Daniels.” They would probably be the favorites to win anyway, as “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is clearly the Academy’s favorite this year. Yet the historical odds seem to be in their favor. 

Only sentimentality seems likely to disrupt this victory. Obviously, Steven Spielberg is probably the most respected director working today. “The Fabelmans” is his most personal film yet and I can see the Academy giving him the award simply for that reason. I also can’t shake the feeling that “The Banshees of Inisherin” may prove to be the dark horse candidate this year, with Martin McDonaugh sweeping up a win on the way to surprise Best Picture victory. 

At the bottom of likely winners is Todd Fields for “Tar” and a surprise nominee for Ruben Ostlund for “Triangle of Sadness,” a movie the Academy liked way more than expected. Neither have any chance of winning this year but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Academy gives them statues at some point in the future. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Daniels for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

BEST WRITING:

Of course, Fields and Ostlund have another shot in the Best Original Screenplay category. In fact, the Academy nominated the exact same group of people for Best Original Screenplay as they did for Best Director. Since the category is Original, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” has been widely acclaimed for its zany originality, it seems probable that the Daniels will pick up statues in this category as well. (Which may shift the favor towards Spielberg in the Best Director category.) Yet my gut is telling me that Martin McDonaugh is the most writerly of the writers here, with “The Banshees of Inisherin” feeling like the most script-centric of these nominees. I think it’ll win.

While the Academy did a total copy-paste job in Original Screenplay, the nominee for Adapted Screenplay feel a little more chaotic. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is by far the most respectable of the nominees here, with “Women Talking” being the buzziest and most relevant. Both are likely winners for that reason. “Glass Onion” would receive its sole nomination here, as being a sequel apparently classifies a movie as Adapted. This is also why “Top Gun: Maverick,” a movie whose writing seems like its least notable element, placed in this category. Last place is “Living,” a remake of Kurasawa’s “Ikiru,” that was on few radars before Tuesday but apparently impressed the writing branch enough. That it was written by an internationally beloved novelist was probably a factor.

OFFICIAL PREDICTIONS:

“The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Women Talking.”

BEST MUSIC:

This year, the Academy gave veteran songwriter and perpetual Best Song nominee Diane Warren an honorary Oscar. Yet even this is not enough to bring our long national nightmare to an end. By which I mean Warren scored her token nominee this year – her fourteenth – for some sappy song from some fucking movie nobody has heard of. “Applause” is from “Tell It Like a Woman,” an inspirational anthology feature of some sort centering around women. It's sung by Sofia Carson, apparently a former Disney Channel star, who goes way over the top in belting out another set of faux-inspirational lyrics. At least the melody is mildly pretty, even if I'm left wondering how Warren keeps get nominated.

She'll probably get nominated again next year too, as I don't think her long-sought win is coming in 2023. If “Top Gun: Maverick's” status as a multiple Oscar nominee came as a surprise, it was always pretty much a given that Lady Gaga's theme song, “Hold My Hand,” would get a Best Song nod. Might “Hold My Hand” repeat the Oscar success that “Take My Breath Away” experienced with the original “Top Gun?” Maybe. Gaga's vocals soar over instrumentation that is a bit overwrought. Yet even a sourpuss like me has to admire the bombastic energy to this love ballad, especially once the wailing guitar solo kicks in.

Yet an unexpected victor seems to have emerged. The overwhelming awesome “RRR” did not score a nomination in Best International Film, because India didn't submit it to the Academy. Yet the absolutely irrepressible “Naatu Naatu” still grabbed a Best Song nod. It's maybe the best musical number I've seen in a movie in years, an utterly joyful and propulsive celebration of the two bro-iest bros in India dancing the shoes off some stuffy Englishmen. I don't know if the song is as good as the dance scene... But only because the scene is outstanding, while the song is merely great. It has to win, right?

It better but I wouldn't be shocked if the Academy gave the Oscar to Gaga or Rihanna's “Hold Me Up,” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” instead. The Rihanna song is pretty, I suppose, with an effective lullaby like melody. At least until she starts warbling tunelessly in the last third. And I guess the Academy's love for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was further confirmed with even its theme song getting a nomination. I love David Byrne and occasionally enjoy Mitski but I found the song pretty forgettable and meandering. Hopefully “Naatu Naatu” fever will grip the Academy too.

Son Lux's score for “Everything Everywhere All At Once” got nominated too. It's a fittingly quirky score, full of creative piano melodies, scattering soundscapes, discordant jazz riffs, and thumping electronic touches. It's interesting but probably too weird to win an Oscar. 

Justin Hurwitz' fusion of big band, jazz, and modern dance music for “Babylon” is certainly energetic, and probably the most listenable score here when separated from its source movie, but I wonder if it'll appeal to the stodgy music branch of the Academy. Carter Burwell's “Banshees of Inisherin” score is much more traditional and, it must be said, very pretty. John Williams' score for “The Fabelmans” is even more traditional and also extremely pretty. Considering Williams is in his nineties, I wouldn't be shocked if the Academy honors him with one more Oscars. (If he won, it would be his sixth.) Volker Bertelmann's doom-laden score for “All Quiet on the Western Front” is definitely the heaviest, and least easy on the ears, of these nominees. Though it is effective in its own way. 

OTHER FILM CATEGORIES:

2022 was an incredibly high-profile year for feature length animation but the Academy’s nominees barely tell that story. I never expected the raw weirdness of “Mad God” to score a nomination but I hoped Netflix’s campaign money would be enough to score a nod for “Wendell & Wild.” Instead, another offering from the streaming giant scooped up the fifth slot, with the CGI sea monster feature “The Sea Beast” receiving a surprise nomination. (This also pushed out any of G-Kids’ potential selections.) 

The likely winner seems to be another Netflix production, with “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” being by far the most prestige festooned of the nominees. You can’t overlook the possibility that the Academy will just give it to Pixar again though. And it’s not like the excellent “Turning Red” wouldn't deserve it. The expected Dreamworks selection is “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” which received far better reviews than you’d expect from a decade-late sequel to a forgettable “Shrek” spin-off. 

A24 is having a very good year at the Oscars. “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is currently the fave to win Best Documentary and it’s easy to imagine a story of cultural relevance and artistic ambitions resonating with Academy voters. Yet there’s still a part of me that feels like A24’s arthouse pretensions may be too much for voters. (While “A House Made of Splinters” and “Navalny” will probably resonate with people who feel the war in the Ukraine is the story of the year.) I can imagine feel-good nature documentaries like “All That Breathes” or “Fires of Love” being a little more their speed. 

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” considering how much the Academy likes it, is all but guaranteed to pick up Best International Feature. Though I can’t help but root for “EO,” the quirky Polish road movie starring a donkey. Also, I hope “My Year of Dicks” picks up Best Animated Short, just so the presenter is forced to say that title on live television.

MISC.:

“Top Gun: Maverick” has its eye on the Best Sound award, I'm betting, and probably Best Editing too. (Though the hyper-kinetic visuals of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” pose a major challenger.) It would probably be a slam-dunk in the Best Visual Effects too if “Avatar: The Way of Water” didn't loom over that category so oppressively. 

Otherwise, the technical categories are all over the place this year. There are few obvious frontrunners. One assumes “Empire of Light” got its sole nomination, in Best Cinematography, out of deference to Roger Deakins' reputation, as that film otherwise has no buzz in a category with little hype. The colorful comic book costumes of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” seem like a probable winner, though “Babylon's” period detailing is its next biggest rival. Damian Chazelle's divisive postmortem on Hollywood's golden age also has strong chances in Production Design, though “Elvis” is also a contender in there. I think “The Batman” turning Colin Farrell into the Penguin means it deserves the Best Make-Up Oscar but the pounds of latex they buried Brendan Fraser under in “The Whale” seems the likelier winner. 

Regardless of the outcomes, I'm going to try and squeeze in as many of the nominees as possible before the March 12th broadcast. I've managed to see all of the nominees in the last three years but there's some hard-to-find titles this year, so we'll see. Hopefully Jimmy Kimmel will restrain himself from ranting about how “Spider-Man” should've been nominated while hosting. 

Director Report Card: Henry Selick (2022)

5. Wendell & Wild

Henry Selick doesn't make a lot of movies. Since the beginning of his career in 1975, while working as an in-betweener at Disney, he's only completed three short films, five features, and a handful of television bumpers. This relatively small body of work is presumably due to Selick's stop-motion animation being an intensive, time-consuming process and the simple fact that his movies are fucking weird.  They're not commercial. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Coraline" are beloved cult classics now but their initial box office receipts – the only language Hollywood really speaks – were middling. This is the likely reason why the numerous, promising projects Selick has been attached to over the years never made it before audiences.

Yet Netflix, in their desperate bid to buy award season prestige, briefly started the habit of bankrolling whatever crazy shit beloved auteurs wanted to make. I don't know if Selick was on the streamer giant's radar but Jordan Peele certainly was. When Peele and his partner-in-crime Keegan-Michael Key began developing a film with Selick, Netflix was eager to pick it up. This is how another entry for the surprisingly packed category of Weirdest Stop-Motion Animated Film of 2022 came to be. Netflix put the film in theaters long enough to get Academy consideration before burying it on their service.

As a child, Kat's parents died in a car wreck, leaving her a ward of the state. Enrolled in an all-girls Catholic school in the dying town of Rust Bank, Kat continues to grapple with the otherworldly visions that she's dealt with all her life. At school, she makes friends – including the daughter of the for-profit prison industrialists the Klaxons – and receives a demonic marking on her hand. Kat soon learns she is a “hell maiden” and begins communicating with two demonic brothers, Wendell and Wild. The brothers have hatched a plot to fund their dreamed-about amusement park by using the hair growth gel belonging to their massive father to resurrect the dead. The demons soon become embroiled in a scheme with the Klaxons to force through their plans for a prison. All while Kat juggles her own destiny.

“Wendell & Wild” reminds me of movies like “Akira” or Ralph Bakshi's “The Lord of the Rings.” By which I mean it feels like a long-running source material, like a comic book or lengthy novel, was adapted into a single motion picture. That the filmmakers were attempting to shove as much of the story into one movie as possible. The film is based on an unpublished children's book Selick co-wrote, the contents of which we can only speculate on, yet it contains easily enough ideas for several books. Extensive backstories for minor supporting characters, such as a nun at Kat's school who is also a Hell Maiden, are only hinted at. Oddball concepts with specific names and rules, like a demonic teddy bear or that aforementioned resurrecting hair gel, are freely thrown around. Wacky plot points with lots of ramifications are quickly introduced and we, the viewer, just have to roll with it. The film includes enough unique phrases, characters, and subplots to easily fill an entire series.

The most prominent, and likable, of those many ideas is a large cast made up of lovable misfits. We like Kat immediately, not just because the film does a good job of establishing that life has already put her through the grinder at such a young age, but also because her goth-punk attitude and fashion simply makes her a cool, stylish presence. She quickly makes friends at school, somewhat reluctantly, with Raul. Raul is trans, his former life as a girl being nodded at a few times but in a tactful way. Wendell and Wild are outcasts too, demons devoted to a whimsical dream that they are determined to fulfill at all cost. It’s easy to see why these four characters get along, even if their relationship is prickly at best. 

Yet even this gang doesn’t account for all of “Wendell & Wild’s” cast. Upon arriving at the school, Kat also meets Siobhan and her trio of friends, as well as their adorable little goat sidekick. (One could imagine a soft plush toy of that character being made and selling well, if this movie actually had any merchandise.) Siobhan’s parents, Raul’s mom, and the various faculty members at the school all have little character arcs of their own. Like I said, this is a lot of plot and circumstance for one movie. Your head starts to spin a little bit, trying to keep track of it all. 

This is probably why, sometimes, “Wendell & Wild” feels like it shortchanges its own protagonist. Obviously, Kat overcoming the grief of loosing her parents at such a young age is the main emotional through line of the movie. With so many incidents, convoluted lore, and wacky characters on its mind, the resolution to the protagonist’s trauma gets shoved into a few scene. One of which is an elaborate light show that represents her struggling with her magical powers. Not the most intuitive way to tell the story. Once her parents are resurrected as zombies, that arc can be handled a little more smoothly. Even then, it feels underserved. 

Of course, maybe I’m going about this all wrong. Perhaps I’m being intellectual. Film is a visual medium and, by that account, “Wendell & Wild” is a success. Because it looks fucking cool. The power of stop motion, when compared to other animation mediums, is how tactile it feels. These are real puppets, on real stages, being moved around by invisible hands. That brings with it a weight and detail that isn’t available in traditional animation. “Wendell & Wild” takes full advantage of this, with its colorful character designs that often bend in likably outrageous fashion. This is most evident in the finale, where the group of zombies go up against a collection of snowblowers. 

If it wasn’t obvious by now, “Wendell & Wild” is overflowing with spooky Halloween energy. The scene where the undead emerge from their caskets, thrusting worm-infested faces right into the camera, wouldn’t feel out of place in any of Selick’s past collaborations with Tim Burton. The visions of Hell in this movie, while far more whimsical than “Mad God” or “L’inferno,” is still ripe with enormous cartoon devils and shrieking, ghost-like souls. The movie also focuses more on slime, snot, and goo more than you’d probably expect, showing that the grotesque attributes of “Monkeybone” were probably Selick’s idea. 

In fact, “Wendell & Wild” resembles “Monkeybone” quite a lot. While there’s nothing here as gross as Chris Kattan tossing his own internal organs from his body, the film shows a similar fascination with decomposing corpses, via its various shambling zombies. Meanwhile, the underworld the titular brothers come from is a Hellish amusement park with lots of infernal rollercoasters. That directly takes me back to “Monkeybone’s” weirdo vision of the afterlife. If there was ever any doubt that the skeletons and ghouls in “Nightmare Before Christmas” were as much Selick’s fascination as Tim Burton’s, this should put it to rest.

As a Key and Peele project, “Wendell & Wild” is only slightly less distinct. The titular characters are visually patterned after Peele and Key, with the stout and child-like Wild contrasting nicely with the taller, skinnier, wackier Wendell. Yet Peele's touch is most evident in the subplot about the predatory prison complex industry. The Klaxons are greedy murderers who gleefully design a ploy that will send troubled kids straight from school to prison. They manipulate local politics to support their evil greed by shoving in votes from literal dead people. They lie to their daughter, who naively assumes the prisons to be comfortable establishments that treat their prisoners fairly. It's a fair take down of the prison industry, albeit one that feels a little forced into a story that's already overflowing with narrative. Considering Peele's love of discussing social woes within the horror genre in his own film, one imagines this subplot was his idea. 

Key and Peele, of course, share lots of amusing banter all throughout the film. The two have such a laidback quality to their comedy, which makes the absurd, circular directions their conversations go in so funny. Yet Wendell and Wild actually only have a supporting role in their own movie. Lyric Ross as Kat is the proper star of the movie and she gives  a likable, suitably caustic but vulnerable performance. James Hong also has a hilarious role as the quickly undead priest that runs the school, while Ving Rhames' baritone is well utilized as the titular duo's demonic father. I wish Angela Bassett was given a little more to do, as the demon-fighting nun that becomes Kat's mentor. 

"Wendell & Wild" undeniably belongs to the creative forces that birthed it. Its visual style and character designs, not to mention its fascination with spooky and kooky things, are so clearly the work of Henry Selick. Its off-beat sense of humor and socially conscious context clearly come from Key and Peele's minds. Even the afro-punk soundtrack speak to the distinctive sensibilities that spawned it, as Selick worked on a few Fishbone videos. As much as there is to like here, I do wish "Wendell & Wild" had been a series, instead of just one film. With more room to breath, its convoluted story, large cast, and extensive lore would've had more room to breath. But I still enjoyed the experience and have no doubt that it'll gather a cult following in the years to come. If nothing else, I'm thankful we got another peek at Selick's twisted imagination. [Grade: B-]

Director Report Card: Guillermo del Toro (2022)

12. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Co-directed by Mark Gustafson

Now that he's the director of a Best Picture winner, it seems Guillermo del Toro is working hard to get his dream projects made. While his big budget “At the Mountains of Madness” remains unrealized, his long dreamed-about adaptation of “Pinocchio” has finally arrived. That is thanks to Netflix, who clearly wants the prestige of being in the Guillermo del Toro business. (Even if their backing of weirdo auteur projects like this have done nothing to raise their profit margins.) The often adapted tale – so often, this is the second version to debut on streaming this year alone – has been on del Toro's docket since 2008. Del Toro's version is distinguished by being stop-motion and also, obviously, by the instincts of its filmmaker. How did the monster-loving director, who made the film alongside animator Mark Gustafson, handle this material?

Geppetto is a carpenter living in a small, Italian village with his beloved son, Carlo. The boy is killed when the area is bombed during World War I. Geppetto spends the next twenty years grieving. During a drunken fit, he carves a puppet from the tree that grows on Carlo's grave. That night, a blue sprite appears from the woods and brings the puppet to life. Named Pinocchio, Geppetto is unsure what to do with him at first. The mischievous marionette rubs the agents of Mussolini's fascist government the wrong way. Soon, Pinocchio is launched on a quest that sees him acting in a traveling show, ending up in a military training camp for young boys, dying multiple times, being swallowed by a monstrous fish, and attempting to make himself into a “real” boy.

“The Adventures of Pinocchio” is one of the most published and popular children's story in history, which explains why there's been so many adaptations of it. Yet “Pinocchio” is also a tricky book to adapt because it has such an episodic plot. Del Toro's version doesn't really resolve this issue, resulting in a sluggish pace that moves in a somewhat directionless manner from encounter to encounter. Surprisingly, this “Pinocchio” more-or-less maintains the structure of the beloved Disney version than attempting to wrangle a normal story from Carlo Collodi's rambling narrative. Pinocchio is made, recruited into a puppet show instead of going to school, ends up on an island with other mischievous boys, and ends up inside a whale again with his father. The hangings and gorilla judges of Collodi's text are nowhere to be seen.

The biggest change del Toro and his team makes to the familiar tale is shifting the setting to fascist Italy during the forties. The coachman is replaced with a member of Mussolini's police force, who is determined to make fine young fascist men out of every boy in Geppeto's village. Nazi salutes are done throughout the film, alongside the propaganda poster that are put up around the town. Eventually, the puppet is sought to perform before the dictator himself. The film depicts Mussolini as a stumpy little simpleton whose childish whims are enforced with violence. If that didn't make its anti-fascist perspective clear enough, Pinocchio compares Mussolini to a giant piece-of-shit and farts in his general direction before it's over.

That is a very specific message to add to your children's movie and one that's arguably more relevant than ever. Yet “Pinocchio's” anti-fascist messaging is part of a more general anti-war statement. Carlo was killed during a senseless bombing, planes dropping their explosives simply to lighten their load. This has lead Geppetto to hating all war, in all the forms it takes. This attitude soon extends to Pinocchio too, though the state still does everything it can to indoctrinate him. The film doesn't have time to really dig into these ideas, just finding the thought that war leads to people dying for no reason being enough of a message on its own. Which maybe could've been a little more nuanced, though it's direct and easy enough for kids to understand.

Even these ideas fall towards the background as “Pinocchio” goes on. Early in the film, Pinocchio's cricket conscience – named Sebastian in this telling – describes this as a story of flawed fathers and flawed sons. Geppetto is still grieving for Carlo and creates Pinocchio as a replacement for his dead son. Yet he has trouble accepting the puppet as his boy, seeing him as a pale shadow of the idealized child he once had. Per the tradition of Collodi's text, Pinocchio is a mischievous little hell raiser who is always shirking his responsibilities and getting into trouble. This makes his journey into becoming a good son to Geppetto a long one. The conflict between father and son, and their eventual road towards realizing they love and respect each other, is the main driving force behind the story.

Del Toro's interpretation of “Pinocchio” differs from most every other take in a big way. Pinocchio's goal to become a “real” boy is ultimately not as literal as that seems. When you think about it, I suppose the message of  "change yourself so that you are worthy of love” is kind of a fucked-up thing to say to kids. Del Toro goes with the idea that Pinocchio was always worthy of his father's love. That they simply needed to work through some issues to realize that. Ultimately, we are all just trying to be the best sons and men we can be, right? It's a matter of understanding, not gaining approval. That seems to be the message the director is bringing to this well-known narrative.

Yet even this is not the sole idea inside this overstuffed “Pinocchio.” As in the original novel, this Pinocchio dies a few times. Every time he does, he ends up in a fantastical afterlife where the spectre of Death itself sends him back after a short reprieve. Since a puppet isn't really “alive,” he can't really be “dead” either. The idea of immortality is not one touched upon in adaptations of “Pinocchio” very often. This leads to a moral about making the most of the time we have on this planet and always trying our best to be good people. Yet when the film has so many other matters on its mind, there's not really space to explore this particular theme with too much depth. (Even if it does lead to a likably bittersweet final scene.) 

Guillermo del Toro's “Pinocchio” has so many ideas on its mind, that many others are left undeveloped as well. Geppetto builds Pinocchio during a thunderstorm, which brings obvious parallels to “Frankenstein” to mind. That brings ideas of playing God into the story, which invites religious themes. That is discussed openly, when wooden Pinocchio wonders why the wooden crucifix is so beloved by the townsfolk but he's so despised. You can even read this as a story about the perils of being in show business, when Pinocchio gets repeatedly screwed over by Captain Volpe, the man whose puppet show he is recruited into. Devoting a version of “Pinocchio” to any one of these ideas would probably be enough. This one just has them floating around inside, without coming to too specific a point. 

Del Toro was inspired to do his “Pinocchio” in stop-motion animation because he loved an illustrated edition drawn by Gris Grimley. Making a movie about a puppet with puppets is an irresistible idea. Mark Gustafson has been working in stop-motion to various degrees since the eighties. He's had a hand in projects like the California Raisins, “The Adventures of Mark Twain,” “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The PJs.” With such a lengthy resume, it's unsurprising that he makes “Pinocchio” look great. The tactile quality that benefits stop-motion so much is right on display here. The animation is detailed and smooth. The character designs are likable, with the right amount of facial hair, oversized noses, or weird eyes. Yet it also looks a lot like the various films of Laika. I don't know if “The Box Trolls” was a deliberate reference point here but I was reminded of it nevertheless.

Del Toro's high-profile means there's nearly an all-star voice cast here. Newcomer Gregory Mann plays Pinocchio with all the youthful exuberance that you would expect. David Bradley brings a fittingly exhausted quality to his grieving Geppetto. Tilda Swinton's ethereal presence is perfect for this take on the Blue Fairy, which mashes up a peacock with stories of Biblically Accurate Angels. Ewan McGregor is a nicely eccentric take on the Cricket, bringing a lot of his expected charm to the role. Christoph Waltz is here as Volpe, vamping it up nicely. Even the minor roles are filled out by recognizable names. Tim Blake Nelson voices the trio of rabbits in the afterlife and, most amusingly, Cate Blanchett plays a grumbling little monkey that doesn't even speak English. And, yes, because this is a del Toro project, Ron Perlman is here. His gravelly baritone is well suited to the Podesta.  

Out of everything del Toro's “Pinocchio' sets out to do, it is unquestionably least successful as a musical. I suppose as one final homage to the Disney version, the film includes a number of songs. Not a one of the songs are especially memorable. The best proves to be the mournful ode Pinocchio sings to his father while out on the road. The rest of the songs tend to have the characters just flatly explaining what their deal is. This is clear in Pinocchio's introductory number, called “Everything is New to Me.” Or in Volpe's solo, “We Were Kings Once,” which counts among the film's least essential numbers. All the songs have annoyingly sing-songy melodies to them that never stick in the brain, with forgettable lyrics.

I couldn't help but come away from this “Pinocchio” feeling a little disappointed. I think that Italian adaptation from a few years back set my expectations for weirdness too high. It's not like del Toro's “Pinocchio” isn't weird. An anti-fascist “Pinocchio” with this many ambitious themes inside of it, rendered through lovingly created stop-motion animation, is probably as unexpected a project as you could imagine. Yet you get the impression that maybe del Toro had spent so many years dreaming about this one, he tried to shove in every idea he had. Through it all, he still wasn't able to defeat the meandering pace that effects every version of this story. While it's still a worthy effort, I came away loving it a lot less than the director's previous work. I imagine his next Netflix-backed dream project – a version of “Frankenstein,” that he's been discussing even longer – will be more up my alley. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Lucky McKee (2022)

9. Old Man

I've been a fan of Lucky McKee since 2003, when “May” was released and instantly became one of my favorite movies. In that time, he's released seven more movies without a single one of them really crossing over into mainstream success. His last movie – which was pretty good! – went straight to the Lifetime Network. Despite this, McKee has continued to get a new feature released every few years. His latest work, “Old Man,” is among his strangest and most insular projects yet. Like nearly everything he's done, it's been met with a divisive reaction even among the people who are fans of the director. Yet I liked it!

An old man in long johns awakens in his cabin, in the middle of the woods. He looks for his dog, Rascal, which has pissed on his floor and disappeared. Despite his isolation, there is a knock at his door. A man named Joe, who claims to be a lost hiker, has found his way to the man's abode. He regards Joe with suspicion, interrogating him and holding him at gun point. Soon, the two men begin to reveal more about each other, learning they have more in common then they at first assumed. 

“Old Man” is, essentially, a two-man play. For nearly the entire run time, Stephen Lang's old man and Marc Senter's Joe are the only characters in the film. The cabin is basically the only location. With no prior backstory on either of these men, we have no idea who to trust or believe. The old man certainly seems unstable and dangerous, considering the ease with which he threatens people and the stories he tells of torture. Yet there's something shifty about Joe as well, his story often not lining up either. This is a set-up that draws tension from uncertainty. The audience is never sure which of these guys is crazy, or crazier at the very least. Who is a threat to whom? It's a simple premise that allows for a surprising amount of tension to build.

Adding to this suspense is just how isolated the entire film feels. We only get the briefest of shots of the forest beyond the old man's door. The glimpses of trees and sky were obviously added with green screen. The cabin is an obvious set, an intentional sense of artificiality being added to the proceedings. The effect creates an almost apocalyptic sense of solitude. For most of the story, it feels like the two principal characters might be the only people left alive in the world. Once a thunderstorm kicks in overhead, the oppressive emptiness only increases. It all adds to the movie's sense of unease and the focus the audience has on these two characters.

Despite shooting in such a limited location, “Old Man” is still fairly dynamic looking motion picture. It begins with a cool tracking shot, creeping over to Lang asleep on his bed. Frequently, there's some good use of camera movements. A slow pan over to a mounted cougar's head is one of the prettiest shots in the film. McKee even employs some dream-like colors are the film progresses. The camerawork is expressive but also emphasizes how cramped this location is, continuing to further the feeling of cramped unease. The cabin itself is meticulously designed, to feel both clattered and cramped, while also leaving enough room to be full of the kinds of shadows and visual depth needed to generate thrills. 

Stephen Lang has risen through the character actor ranks and attained a decent degree of star power. His titular role in “Old Man” seems similar to his part in “Don't Breath,” on the surface. Both are stories of creepy old men with intruders into their houses. Yet Lang really leans into the “old” adjective in the title. He begins the film mumbling, coughing, and drooling like an old coot. This proceeds a level of mega-acting that I haven't seen from the performer since “The Hard Way.” He hams it up to glorious, grotesque heights as he spins a yarn of torture and abuse and has frenzied conversations. Eventually, a pathetic side emerges as well, Lang doing a good job of showing the character loosing his bearings. It's a compellingly bizarre performance and shows that Lang is more than capable of carrying a whole movie.

Starring opposite Lang is Marc Senter. Senter has appeared in several Lucky McKee adjacent projects, like “The Lost” and “Wicked Lake” but starred in his “Tales of Halloween” segment. Senter often reaches for Crispin Glover-levels of twitchy weirdness in his performances. You can still see that element to his role in “Old Man.” Joe seems like a normal fellow, an average traveler with no ulterior motives. Yet the off-beat quality that always floats under Senter's quality definitely gives the idea that he's hiding something, which is perfectly suited to the story's needs. Joe is hiding something, we eventually learn, but the audience can't defeat the creeping suspicion that this is the case even before the reveal. In other words, Senter is perfectly cast. 

“Old Man” isn't just a creepy thriller about two guys with dark secrets, stuck in a cramped location with each other. Early on, Lang tells a rambling anecdote about a Bible salesman who came to visit him once and the violence that followed. He expresses his atheism during this speech, denying a belief in the existence of an “old man in the sky.” Considering the film's title, that line couldn't have been an accident. Later on, Senter has a similarly strong monologue, in which he describes how the stresses of life can build up on you, how bad luck never lets up some times. The characters may deny that they believe in God yet the misfortune piled up at their feet suggest fate is at play... Unless every man is his own “old man in the sky” and builds his own tomb from his own misdeeds, an idea the film returns to more and more as it goes on.

Throughout their conversation, the old man references his ex-wife with the kind of disdain you'd expect from a typical codger. At first, Joe claims to have nothing but respect and love for his own wife. Yet, as the evening winds on, he reveals secrets of his own. It's unsurprising that a story concerned with two guys, arguing and bickering about the problems in their lives, would eventually center around a mutual hatred of their old ladies. McKee's films have often studied the mechanisms of misogyny and this is at play in “Old Man” as well,  as the men quickly come to blame everyone but themselves for their crimes against women. 

If the presence or absence of God is another theme in the film, you can see this in the role ever watching eyes play. That mounted cougar head watches over the old man. It always hovers overhead from its corner of the cabin, watching everything that happens, the camera often centering in on its unending gaze. As the story continues, the lioness is quickly aligned with the wrath of a vengeful woman. This is made all the more apparent when an eye emerges from a fatal wound. It seems, if God exists in this universe, he's not an old “man” in the sky.

The somewhat surreal element to “Old Man” only increases as it goes on. In the last act, the film makes an unexpected turn towards magic realism. The old man begins talking about a magical purple water that can restore youth. This brings another interesting thread into the film, adding more layers to the title. We are all going to run out of youth someday. Most of us will become old men eventually. Joe is a man in the prime of his life while the title character is a doddering, old coot whose best days are behind him. By introducing the element of a fountain of youth into the story, it draws attention to how old principal characters are at opposite ends of the same journey. 

All of this proceeds an ending that I probably should have seen coming, that takes some of the subtext and integrates it into the actual narrative. The dream-like quality of the story becomes more blatant as the film heads into its increasingly surreal finale. At this point, any of the inconsistencies and strangeness that came before come into sharper focus. The ideas of youth, resentment towards woman, and the discussion of God all make a lot more sense as the credits start to roll. It may feel like a cheap, narrative rug-pull to some. Yet I found it to be a satisfying way to bring everything full circle, somewhat literally. 

I've probably made “Old Man” sound more pretentious than it actually is. That's what I like about the film. It is both a very simple story, merely about two guys in one location talking to each other. Yet a number of intriguing ideas are incorporated into a story that gets weirder as it goes on. I guess how much you get out of the film will depend on your willingness to play along with it. I'm not surprised to have seen some bad reviews for it. Maybe it's just because I'm already a Lucky McKee fan but I got a lot of it, in addition to enjoying Lang and Senter's performances. Whether it'll acquire the cult followings McKee's best films have, I can't say but I think I'm likely to revisits this particular little offering in the future. [Grade: B+]

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+]