James Cameron’s sequel ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is sci-fi cinema superlative – and once again blows all budgets.
Under water, freedom must be unlimited Photo: 20th century study
Up until last week, it was still a smart-ass, but thought-provoking conversation starter: that no one really remembered the highest-grossing film of all time (the equivalent of more than €2.75 billion). Most people like a magazine quiz on the net buzz feed which was determined in 2016, they have long since forgotten the name of the male lead. And the great era of 3D cinema, which “Avatar” would usher in with its visual tricks, ended surprisingly quickly after a short heyday.
Meanwhile, James Cameron, undeterred by reflections on the lack of cultural significance of his mega blockbuster, continued to work tirelessly. And instead of remaining modest with initially one sequel, the number of planned sequels has steadily increased.
Cameron is not only already working on two sequels, but four, it was recently rumored. Confidence in the success of the project, which would cost around 750 million euros once completed, has diminished with each passing year since the launch of Avatar in 2009.
More recently, the corona pandemic has only increased skepticism about the possibility of a repeat visitor success worldwide. But since the previews of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in London and Los Angeles last week, everything has suddenly changed again.
Rubbing hand hopeful
“Avatar: The Way of the Water”. Director: James Cameron. With Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña in USA 2022, 192 min.
Enthusiastic reactions on social media channels are overflowing, movie chain owners are rubbing their hands in hope, Oscar pundits are rushing to update their favorites lists, and the ominous ‘Hollywood Foreign Press Association’, notorious for its Their Wave the Flag Fast with the Wind has already earned the film two Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director.
And true pundits now remember that James Cameron is notoriously underrated: Rumors of massive budget overruns and possible bankruptcies circulated in the 1990s until just before ‘Titanic’ began in 1997 – as Winslet and the drama are known to by DiCaprio has become the most successful film of all time. Those box office records of ‘Titanic’ were finally matched only by ‘Avatar’, for which the whole story of doomsday prophecies had been repeated beforehand.
So now Cameron seems to have done it again with “Avatar: the Way of Water”: disproving the skeptics, punishing the doomsayers with lies and wowing movie audiences in a way that encourages them to buy a second movie ticket. And the latter is perhaps the most unexpected element of this story: that “Avatar 2” seems not only to be a good sequel to an almost forgotten fantasy blockbuster from thirteen years ago, but as an augmentation.
Jake Sully hat nun Familie
Action as such is not the deciding factor. Jake Sully (that’s the name of the hero embodied by Sam Worthington), the crippled ex-Marine who defected to the natives in his blue avatar form and helped them defend the planet Pandora against exploitative capitalism, has meanwhile Family.
#Together with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), she raises five children: two teenage sons who compete with each other, an eight-year-old daughter still young, plus Kiri, von’s daughter Na’vi Sigourney Weaver played Part 1 scientist and orphaned human child Spider, who joined Mowgli with the giant blue-skinned rainforest people.
Danger looms in the guise of an old nemesis, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), resurrected in disguise as a Na’vi from the cunning US military of 2150 and joined with a battalion of equally genetically engineered soldiers to fight the Na’vi envoys . Quaritch personally seeks revenge on Sully.
Shelter with the reef people
The new and extraordinary other of Avatar: The Way of Water comes when Jake Sully is forced to flee with his family and finds refuge with another Pandora race, the Reef People. They live on and in the water and the Sullies have to learn a lot first: some purely physically, like the breathing technique to dive into the sea as long as possible, others more mentally, like the special relationship of the Reef From people to individual species of aquatic animals . And, of course, conflicts have to be resolved for the young people’s acceptance into the new community.
With enough danger to the well-being of the Sully family and the planet Pandora as the storyline keeps the plot in suspense for the full three hours, a world of wonder is indeed revealed to the viewer.
The technique is trivially called “underwater motion capture”, but what Cameron conjures up in front of the animation camera turns out to be the paradoxically most natural underwater shot ever seen in a feature film! And this in a year that has already seen two other blockbusters, both DC’s Black Adam and Marvel’s recent sequel to Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, battle to conquer that final frontier, the water world, struggled. With mixed results.
It’s not just the underwater shots as such that make “Way of Water” a show in the truest sense of the word, but all the movements of the characters in and over the water, in and out of the water. From sea creatures, plants, waves and currents to individual drops on the faces and hair of heroes and heroines, everything flows, swims and dives with a visual ease that literally draws you into the canvas. In the meantime you could easily forget that you are sitting in an almost completely CGI-generated movie.
Superstars 3-D
The three-dimensionality, great and true protagonist of “Avatar 1”, plays only a subordinate role. The almost circus-like experience of then, wanting to reach Pandora’s flowers in the cinema with one’s hands, is not repeated. But the many action scenes, whether it’s when a son of Sully battles giant sea creatures alone or when the Reef People in a showdown with a surfboard army puts an end to the highly armored naval vessels are capable of captivate even the viewers who are bored looking at the cell phone during the usual blockbuster battles.
Whether ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ will match its predecessor’s figures remains debatable after the upheavals in the film industry. After all, the film won approval for the Chinese market (which the last seven Marvel films were denied), where Part 1 was writing records at the time. The number of screens in China has since grown from just under 6,000 to over 80,000, which promises some potential.
And so Cameron’s master plan no longer sounds like narcissistic madness, but like a promise, both for the producer and for the audience: Avatar 3 is already finished and should start in 2024, issue 4 is halfway through and scheduled for 2026. The script for Avatar 5 has already been written and the film year is slated for 2028.
