Film review: There’s plenty to be enjoyed over Avatar: The Way of Water's three-hour run time
Avatar: The Way of Water is in cinemas this Christmas
★★★☆☆
The sworn enemy of the native Na’vi people of Pandora in the original Avatar, ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is not only a Na’vi chieftain as Avatar: The Way of Water (12A) opens, but happily married to his erstwhile foe, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and the father of a boisterous brood.
But when his former commander, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) – disguised as a Na’vi – arrives on Pandora to hunt down Sully, the family are forced to flee their beloved forest to seek sanctuary by the ocean, where the Metkayina people, led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), teach them the ways of water.
But Quaritch doesn’t give up easily, and soon Jake and Neytiri are forced to stand and fight.
Written by Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa and James Cameron, with Cameron directing, The Way of Water is a visually impressive sci-fi epic that largely recycles the original’s plot: humans are evil colonial oppressors (the language employed evokes Westerns and Vietnam War movies) who employ superior technology to obliterate natives they consider to be primitive, even if the latter are far more sophisticated in their symbiotic relationship with their environment.
There’s no doubt that that’s a worthy sentiment, but it also means that characterisations tend to lack depth: Colonel Quaritch is a cartoon villain, while Jack and Neytiri are to be viewed as philosopher-warriors, as skilled with a knife or bow-and-arrow as they are at dispensing nuggets of wisdom.
If it ain’t broke, of course, don’t fix it, and there’s plenty here to be enjoyed over the three-hour running time, and especially the imaginative world-building and the vivid underwater world that is brilliantly captured by cinematographer Russell Carpenter.
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana reprise their roles effectively, and there’s a very nice turn from Bailey Bass as their daughter, Tsireya, a charismatic seer who can communicate with the Great Mother.
