Avatar: The Way of Water is a beautiful film drowned by bad writing

Review by Chris, Library Specialist

Avatar: The Way of Water by James Cameron is a beautiful film that is undermined by its terrible writing. When I saw the first Avatar I thought that the ending represented its main character, Jake Sully, letting go of his humanity and becoming one with the Na’vi through Eywa the All-Mother, who is made up of all living things on Pandora. It’s unfortunate that this is poorly represented in the sequel. This review does contain spoilers if anyone hasn’t seen the film.

Before I really sink my teeth into why the sequel doesn’t work. I want to acknowledge that this is still a gorgeous setting to take in, be it through seeing Pandora’s oceans, forest, or even the dystopian look of the bases and boats that the humans inhabit. It is a visual feast for the eyes to take in.

It’s also important to highlight that this isn’t any regular feat of cinematography, but rather an entire world and narrative brought to life through CGI. Of course, at this point in time, there have been many films that have been made in this manner, but I’d be hard pressed to believe that any of them have the same visual quality of Avatar.

Pivoting away from the only major point of praise that I have for the series at this point. I find it absolutely ridiculous that the villain from the previous movie received plot armor in the form of getting his own Avatar for The Way of Water. The Colonel was a fantastic antagonist for the first film, but recycling him is just lazy. There are so many other ways that they could have brought humans back to haunt Jake, but they chose this instead.

Why did Jake Sully raise his children to be the equivalent of human military brats? Despite being children of the forest and raised among the Na’vi, they show way too many traits of Earth, in their mannerisms and the way that they speak. It belittles the ending of the first movie when Jake lets go of his human body and passes through Eywa to become Na’vi to raise them as if he is on Earth, at least in my eyes.

Also, Jake deciding to abandon the people of the forest who he gave everything for in the first film, just to protect his children is ridiculous. The man who rallied entire clans together and even convinced Eywa to stand alongside him at the end of the first movie is just running away? Abandoning the principles that I thought he was intended to represent and betraying his wife Neytiri by even asking this of her?

So they flee to the ocean, and the Metkayina tribe that inhabits its waters. Just to escape Colonel Quaritch and the human military. When Jake and his family are greeted, Ronal, who is the tsahik of the Metkayina points out that despite being someone who rallied the clans, it looks like Eywa has abandoned Jake and his family.

And then we get our filler for the film, which is showing off the way that the Metkayina live alongside the ocean and Eywa with Jake’s family trying to adjust to their new way of living. Unfortunately, this takes up a significant part of the film’s runtime, and despite getting to see a new part of Pandora, I got so comfortable with the part that I almost fell asleep.

During the course of this interlude, we learn about the whale-like species of animal called tulkun. With the most prominent one being Payakan, who led an attack on the humans after his mother was hunted by them. This attack failed however, leading to the deaths of many tulkun and Na’vi, which caused Payakan to be exiled. Unfortunately, this incident also stood out to the human hunters, so Payakan is literally the white whale of the story.

While these things are introduced, the Colonel bonds with the human boy Miles aka “Spider” because he is apparently his son that was never even shown in the first film. This whole bonding process ends with Spider saving him at the end of the movie, despite the Colonel saying he couldn’t care less whether Spider lived or died.

As a final character acknowledgement, Sigourney Weaver returns to play Jake’s daughter Kiri. It’s obvious from the onset that Kiri is Dr. Grace, reborn through Eywa as one of Jake’s children after they failed to save her in the first film. However, she proves to be even more special than that as she has a connection with Eywa, represented in how she interacts with the world and the creatures that inhabit it as a whole. Frankly, it’s just a cop out to also have Sigourney Weaver return to the cast.

The movie culminates in another big battle like the ending of the first one and one of Jake’s kids dying as a result. Sending Neytiri completely over the edge and on the warpath to kill Quaritch. I was rooting for her to be honest, especially when she was threatening Spider. I thought we were really going to push it to the point of an eye for an eye. But no, Neytiri is talked down off of her intentions and lets Spider go. A wasted moment that really should have been empowering for her, either in killing Quaritch or Spider.

As the story wraps up, all I felt was that we went nowhere. That this was nothing more than a set piece to justify James Cameron making another sequel. I want to believe that the story he is trying to tell has the opportunity to really blossom into something wonderful. But, as of right now, it is nothing more than a beautiful, expensive tech demo with characters haphazardly inserted into it.

Note: Starting in January 2025, we began publishing long-form DVD reviews written by GFPL staffers. The DVDs are all available to check out at the Library, or from one of our Partner Libraries. We post a new review each month! Come back next month to find the next review.