Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Avatar: The Way of Water
This film's stunning visual, shot in 3D and HDR at 48 frames per second, is a giant leap from its predecessor. You are guaranteed an immersive experience if you watch it in a theater with the biggest screen you can find. The film reportedly has a price tag of more than $350 million, and you will see the trace of this money when you are enthralled by the imaginary world in the film.
Contrary to its technical achievement and its running time, the film's ho-hum story is quite thin. Former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is now the leader of the Omatikaya clan after being transformed into an avatar. He is happily married to Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) with two sons, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), a daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as an adopted teenage daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver). The only human in this harmonic Na'vi community is Spider (Jack Champion), growing up together with Jake's children after he was left behind after the war between humans from Earth and Na'vi from Pandora ended.
Of course, the most immediate threat to any species, both on earth and on other planets, is human. Peace in the forest where Jake's family lives is disrupted by a human invasion, led by a recombinant Quaritch (Stephen Lang) whose mission is to hunt down Jake. To protect his family and the Omatikaya clan, Jake takes his family out of the forest to the sea and they take refuge under the Metkayina clan whose leaders are Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife Ronal (Kate Winslet). The Metkayina clan's habitat is where the film's title is referring to: the vast exotic ocean. It has all sorts of exquisite marine species, including the gigantic and intelligent tulkun which resembles a hybrid of a whale and a sea turtle. What is even more remarkable is that a tulkun is able to communicate with the Na'vi natives.
Predictably, Jake's presence in the water world means the war with humans is going to spread over and destroy another peaceful living environment. So, the story ends with a battle just like how it started.
Watching this film, you might feel like you are visiting the best aquarium you have ever been to. Forget about those high-priced travel shows such as Immersive Van Gogh, this film literally brings you into the ocean to be among those charming sea creatures with the price of a movie ticket. They flow gracefully between your eyeballs with glowing colors. Despite being from another planet, many of them show traits of marine animals on earth. They are delightful to look at, and you feel outraged when humans come to kill them.
The director James Cameron is a master of putting up a great show to entertain us. He knows how to choreograph an exciting battle scene as well as exhibiting a tranquil paradise. That alone makes this movie's big budget well spent. However, he should have invested some of the money on the story. The new AI Chat Bot probably can write up a more complex plot and more in-depth characters than those in this film.
Even though we waited for thirteen years to revisit Pandora and the Na'vi natives, we will be visiting their universe much sooner from now on, because three more Avatar sequels have already been planned, one every two years from now until 2028. Let's hope the stories and their characters get better developed in the next three sequels, instead of just the visuals and special effects.
In any case, one point the director makes very clearly with this film is that humans are the root of all destruction. Perhaps NASA shouldn't spend the money on exploring life on Mars, and should just give the money to James Cameron to create a pleasant place with delightful species for us to marvel at, where no humans are allowed.
"Avatar: The Way of Water" opens on Friday, December 16, 2022.
