In terms of pure cinematic enjoyment, visual wonder, and epic spectacle, 'Avatar: The Way Of Water' is one of the best of the year. – Photos: Walt Disney Company Malaysia
Let’s get this out of the way first. if you're wondering if Avatar: The Way Of Water is worth watching in 3D, then the answer is a resounding YES.
The 3D and visual effects are every bit as stunning as James Cameron promised they would be. From the get-go, you are transported directly into the world of Pandora once more, and it is every bit as beautiful a paradise as it was the first time around, except that this time, you get to see a whole new, underwater side of it.
In case you were one of the few that DIDN'T manage to catch Avatar when it came out all those years ago (or during the limited rel-release earlier this year), then here's a refresher.
Welcome to Air Pandora, please keep your hands to yourself at all times and don't feed the ikran.
A decade has passed since human soldier Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) fell in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and helped the Na'vi defeat the 'sky people', killing the despicable Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) in the process.
Jake and Neytiri have since raised a family of four children – eldest son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), second son Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and youngest child Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss).
But their peaceful life is once again disrupted when the humans return to Pandora with the ultimate goal of terraforming the entire planet into a new planet for humans to live in.
And along with this new wave of humans is none other than Quaritch himself, or rather, a Na'vi clone of him embedded with his memories and skills. Faced with this new threat, Jake and his family flee their native jungles and seek refuge with the Metkayina water tribe.
A wise man called Dominic once said, you won't feel blue if you have family.
Plot-wise, Cameron pretty much sticks to the tried and true formula of family, duty, loyalty, with the Sully family's struggles to adapt to life within the dynamics of the Metkayina lending a familiar 'fish out of water' (pun intended) element to proceedings.
But simple plot or not, one thing is for sure, Cameron sure knows how to tell a story. Even though 13 years have passed since the first movie took the world by storm and muscled its way to the top of the all-time box-office charts, at no point in The Way Of Water do you struggle to recall what happened in the first movie.
While some might say it's because the first movie didn't really have much of a story to begin with, but hey, it's a testament to Cameron's skill that you never actually NEED to watch the first movie to know what is happening here.
Swimming with the fishes has a different meaning in Pandora.
The pace and the flow of the movie is inch perfect, and even though it's over three hours long, there is always something happening or something spectacular to marvel at the entire time.
It's only when the credits start rolling and you take those 3D glasses off that the full weight of those three hours hits you and you feel mentally exhausted at the entire spectacle of it.
Make no mistake about it, The Way Of Water isn't just a movie – it's a spectacle, and boy does Cameron excel at creating those. The entire film is a technical wonder, with Cameron's legendary attention to detail making sure that at no point are you taken out of the world of Pandora. His world building is impeccable – if you thought the jungles of Pandora was cool, wait till you see its oceans.
The Pandora remake of Titanic was a sinking ship from the get go.
From the landscapes to the cultures, the languages to the plant life, Cameron has crafted a world worth immersing yourself in. Don't be surprised if years after he has made the fifth and final Avatar movie, he decides to make an actual documentary about the wildlife of Pandora, narrated by David Attenborough.
Cameoron is also a master at making us love his characters or hate his bad guys. Jake's family provides all the right emotional pulls this time around, and in Lang's Quaritch, he has an antagonist who is as despicable as they come (though even he gets a lot more nuances this time around).
What is this, 'Free Willy'?
If anything, the perfection and flawlessness of The Way Of Water may be its only flaw, ironically enough. Everything is so immaculately done, fine-tuned to an inch of perfection, that at times it just feels too... unreal and unrelatable. After the movie, I felt the same thing I felt with the first one – that feeling that for all the spectacle and visual wonder, there was nothing that really resonates strongly enough to make it truly memorable.
Cameron's story, the characters, even the action sequences – it's all meticulously calculated and executed in order to illicit the correct emotional response and feelings of wonder at the right times, but it still somehow doesn't do enough to truly stay in your heart.
To counter one of Cameron's arguments against superhero movies – Avatar may be a better movie in every way, but there is not a single 'Avengers Assemble'-style moment that you'll remember afterwards.
But like I said, don't let that stop you from watching The Way Of Water. In terms of pure cinematic enjoyment, visual wonder, and epic spectacle, it is one of the best of the year.
Summary:
Go with the flow and watch it in 3D
