Ryan Shoots First: Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar gets a lot of shit and if I am honest I never really got why. We’re always crying about a lack of new IPs or original ideas in cinema, and this was something entirely new. Not based on a comic, or a video game, or a book, just the mind of James Cameron. I never really understand the hate beyond just “thing is super popular and successful so I shall hate it”. And Avatar was SUPER successful to the tune of the highest-grossing picture of all time. A perfect storm of craft-full filmmaking, a hero journey, breakthrough visual effects and technology, the height of moving going, and a general holiday release when people were looking for stuff to do all gave way to a general movie experience. Since 2008 I can only name a few times I have really felt that way again. I was watching something that would forever change how we look at movies and the entire industry just pivoted. Whether you like it or not you cannot deny Avatar represented a fundamental shift in the way we experience movies.
13 years later and the question is can James do it again? How do you follow up the most successful movie of all time? In a time when movie-going is a lost pastime and maybe at its lowest, is there any way this film can live up to its predecessor? Does it even need to? Will it be on Disney+ by February anyway? All valid questions but for now I’ll try to answer the question, is it any good?
Well, much of that will depend on your take on the original. If you sit in the corner just waiting to trash Avatar because you’re the cool contrarian no amount of seeing Jake Sully swim will change your mind. You’re a unique spirit who refuses to conform to the establishment, if only we all could be as brave as you. But to everyone else, Avatar: The Way of Water manages to build on the impressive world-building of the first, move our characters forward in meaningful ways, and also set up what looks to be a LOT of more films in the series going forward. Oh, and it also manages to bring another leap in how movies are made and look on screen. Much was made when the trailer came out that it didn’t look any better, that like every iPhone really now is the same we have reached a sort of limit on the technological leaps we can take. Well… I think you can say that when watching this content on your phone screen but in the theatre? Once again I was blown away by the craftsmanship and sheer spectacle on screen. Again I know 3D has largely died but if you can see it on 3D, do it, see it on the biggest screen you can find cause it will be worth every penny. It’s insane, I don’t think I have been this awed by a technological front since Avatar in 2008. Sure movies have looked good and been great experiences but honestly, beyond me knowing the tall blue people aren’t real, the environments and lighting are breathtaking. Pandora itself was a key character in the original picture, a living breathing thing that was more than just a setting. Plenty of scenes just left us in the world with the characters to experience it. It worked as Jake was seeing it all for the first time as well so we could live in his shoes. Well, they manage to do that again with the water aspects of the film. Again Jake and his family are integrating into a new tribe that you guessed it, lives with the water much the same way the Navi lived with the forest in the first film. Filming with water can be hard, and recreating water in CGI can be even harder. The way it acts, splashes, reflects light, and allows translucence can be a painstaking process. So James decided to film the majority of the film there. So many scenes I just thought to myself, “holy crap that looks good”.
Sure Ryan, we thought it would be pretty but is the movie good? I would say yes, especially if you like many are experiencing film fatigue. Month after month we trudge into theatres to watch the new superhero movie and while I like them there is something I haven’t felt in a while. Spider-Man: No Way Home was probably the last genuine experience I felt in a theatre but it seems to just be an exercise lately. Avatar: The Way of Water felt important, it felt meaningful, it felt like old cinema in a way. It didn’t have a formula, it doesn’t feel built to fit an algorithm, it felt genuine and real. Say what you want about James Cameron taking decades between films now when he comes out of his sub to make a film it will not be phoned in. I hope it keeps up as I assume the 4 more sequels planned won’t be 13 years apart but he has it planned out, he has the keys and I trust him for now. We should all know by now not to bet against Jimmy C and while other parent companies cancel projects, reshuffle studio heads and play will they or won’t they with Henry Cavil, Fox/Disney seems to have left James to play in his sandbox however he wants.
In closing Avatar: The Way of Water once again sets the bar for what can be achieved in cinema and is something that should get us out of our streaming dens and into a theatere, and not cause Nicole Kidman told you to.
