Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) - Cameron outdoes himself with amazing adventure

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Central characters and a dazzling image of high adventure from the film make up this poster for James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water

Many years after US Marine Jake Sully joined the Na'vi people of Pandora in his Avatar body, he has built a family with Neytiri with 4 children. But now the human 'sky people' force them to leave their home and seek sanctum with the Metkayina 'reef people'.

 

Avatar: The Way of Water is written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver (Eye for an Eye (1996), both) and Ontarian master filmmaker, co-writer/co-producer/director James Cameron (Piranha II: The Spawning (1981)), with Josh Friedman (The Black Dahlia (2006)) and Shane Salerno (Armageddon (1998)) contributing story elements. It is Cameron's 11th feature and the sequel to his Avatar (2009), still the highest-grossing film of all time (2.923 bil. $.)

One of the longest-anticipated films in history, Avatar: The Way of Water arrives at a critical time for the theatrical business, and hopefully it will reinvigorate it and bring some patrons back in the cinema seats. It is pretty much all you could have hoped for and actually a greater film than the first one. My history with Avatar is that it completely blew me away in 2009, but that I have later revisited it in more humbling home surroundings and found that its simplistic, cliched narrative politics worked against its visual magic.

That seems less the case in Way of Water, although the militaristic-industrial humans are still the villains. The simple romance story of the first film is now enlarged to be a family story with wider themes of parenthood, rebellion/coming-of-age, unity, loss and love giving meaning to most every minute of the film's epic span. The story, which echoes both Cameron's Aliens (1986) and Titanic (1997), is good, and it doesn't matter so much if you aren't clear the first time around at every turn who each blue character is, because more than a plot- or character-driven vehicle, Avatar movies are visual adventures. The 3D technology, accelerated frame rate and especially the completely amazing wonders of mechanical and natural designs that the film throws at us are exhilarating on a level that few films can match. You've simply gotta see Avatar: The Way of Water at the cinema to go to this new water world of Pandora.

It is hard to critique the performances of a film that's so much motion-capture and so little live-action. How do we know if the strong performances are really thanks to the actor and not a team of expert animators, basically? Sam Worthington's (Everest (2015)) Sully has less adventure in Way of Water as he wrestles with fatherhood and protecting his family. Zoe Saldana (Missing Link (2019)) is fierce as the more intuitive Neytiri. Jack Champion (Truck Slut (2018, short)) is a new, charismatic member as the caught-in-the-middle boy Spider. Edie Falco (Landline (2017)) is a welcome addition as General Ardmore and likely to return. And Stephen Lang (Death in Texas (2020)) is fantastic as the evil ex-Marine Quaritch.

The late James Horner's (Titanic (1997)) original theme is wonderful. The action is fabulous and thrilling, the sense of wonder is rare and powerful, and Avatar: The Way of Water also has moments of moving poignancy. 

You have no business doing anything but going to a cinema to see this movie! Off with you!

 

Related posts:

James Cameron: The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date    

Avatar (2009) - Cameron's simplistic action-adventure wins with visuals 

Solaris (2002) - A suffering space question mark (co-producer)
Aliens (1986) or, Alien War

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Reportedly 350-400 mil. $

Box office: 441.7 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[Avatar: The Way of Water premiered 6 December (London) and runs 192 minutes. Production was announced in 2010. The release was delayed 8 times, as writing, visual effects technology, especially concerning shooting motion capture underwater, and other issues dragged out, until the corona pandemic hit and further complicated matters. Shooting took place from September 2017 - September 2020 in California, including in Los Angeles, and New Zealand, including in Wellington. The film opened #1 to a 134.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America. Cameron has stated that it will need to break 2 bil. $ globally to be considered a success. The film was shot back to back with Avatar 3, set to release in December 2024. The future of Cameron's further two planned sequels are as of yet uncertain due to their enormous costs. The film has won an AFI award, is nominated for 2 Golden Globes and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Cameron is returning with Avatar 3 (2024). Wortington returns in The Georgetown Project (2022); Saldana in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023); and Lang in Avatar 3. Avatar: The Way of Water is certified fresh at 78 % with a 7.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Avatar: The Way of Water? 

Death of a Salesman (1985), TV movie - Schlöndorff's great adaptation of Arthur Miller's masterpiece

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Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman and John Malkovich as his son Biff on a DVD cover for Volker Schlöndorff's Death of a Salesman

QUICK REVIEW:

Farm-worker Biff returns home to visit his disappointed father, who is struggling with the bills and his sanity.

This Death of a Salesman adaptation is a CBS TV movie directed by great German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum/Die Blechtrommel (1979)), based on playwright Arthur Miller's (A View from the Bridge (1955)) own teleplay adaptation of his legendary 1949 play of the same name.
The film presents great acting in every part: Particularly Dustin Hoffman (Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)), John Malkovich (Mulholland Falls  (1996)) and Charles Durning (Tootsie (1982)) as Willy's neighbor are eminent. Schlöndorff has staged the play with expansive, affecting colors and sets that enhance the super-reality of the stream-of-consciousness-based story. Miller's masterful script stands out as clear as lightning here as the almost unbearably intensive male tragedy that it is.
SPOILER Loman's death is, regrettably, inelegantly handled.
Still, Schlöndorff's film is a generally outstanding adaptation of one of the irrefutably best plays of all time.

Watch a student-made trailer for the film here, (an official trailer is not in Youtube currently)

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: Unknown 
= Unknown
[Death of a Salesman had its TV debut June 24 and runs 136 minutes. Hoffman was interested in mounting a movie adaptation with Miller's co-operation as writer-producer, and Schlöndorff was hired based on his expressionist ideas. The film came to be as the conclusion of the 1984 revival of the play on Broadway with most of the actors playing their characters again in the film. The film was made with the big screen in mind and shot in 20 days. Miller had been unhappy with the two previous adaptations of the play, but he was proud of this version. The film was shown theatrically in foreign countries and at several film festivals. You can read more of the making of the film in a New York Times article from the time of its making here. Hoffman won a Golden Globe for his acting in the film, and it also won 3 Emmys. Death of a Salesman is fresh at 100 % with an 8.4 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes, and 7,004 IMDb users have given it a 7.3 average rating.]

What do you think of Death of a Salesman?