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Avatar: The Way of Water

James Cameron wants you to believe. He wants you to believe that aliens are killing machines, humanity can defeat time-traveling cyborgs, and a film can transport you to a significant historical disaster. In many ways, the planet of Pandora in “ Avatar ” has become his most ambitious manner of sharing this belief in the power of cinema. Can you leave everything in your life behind and experience a film in a way that’s become increasingly difficult in an era of so much distraction? As technology has advanced, Cameron has pushed the limits of his power of belief even further, playing with 3D, High Frame Rate, and other toys that weren’t available when he started his career. But one of the many things that is so fascinating about “Avatar: The Way of Water” is how that belief manifests itself in themes he’s explored so often before. This wildly entertaining film isn’t a retread of “Avatar,” but a film in which fans can pick out thematic and even visual elements of “ Titanic ,” “ Aliens ,” “The Abyss,” and “The Terminator” films. It’s as if Cameron has moved to Pandora forever and brought everything he cares about. (He’s also clearly never leaving.) Cameron invites viewers into this fully realized world with so many striking images and phenomenally rendered action scenes that everything else fades away.

Maybe not right away. “Avatar: The Way of Water” struggles to find its footing at first, throwing viewers back into the world of Pandora in a narratively clunky way. One can tell that Cameron really cares most about the world-building mid-section of this film, which is one of his greatest accomplishments, so he rushes through some of the set-ups to get to the good stuff. Before then, we catch up with Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ), a human who is now a full-time Na’vi and partners with Neytiri ( Zoe Saldana ), with whom he has started a family. They have two sons—Neteyam ( Jamie Flatters ) and Lo’ak ( Britain Dalton )—and a daughter named Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and they are guardians of Kiri ( Sigourney Weaver ), the offspring of Weaver’s character from the first film.

Family bliss is fractured when the ‘sky people’ return, including an avatar Na’vi version of one Colonel Miles Quaritch ( Stephen Lang ), who has come to finish what he started, including vengeance on Jake for the death of his human form. He comes back with a group of former-human-now-Na’vi soldiers who are the film’s main antagonists, but not the only ones. “Avatar: The Way of Water” once again casts the military, planet-destroying humans of this universe as its truest villains, but the villains’ motives are sometimes a bit hazy. Around halfway through, I realized it’s not very clear why Quaritch is so intent on hunting Jake and his family, other than the plot needs it, and Lang is good at playing mad.

The bulk of “Avatar: The Way of Water” hinges on the same question Sarah Connor asks in the “Terminator” movies—fight or flight for family? Do you run and hide from the powerful enemy to try and stay safe or turn and fight the oppressive evil? At first, Jake takes the former option, leading them to another part of Pandora, where the film opens up via one of Cameron’s longtime obsessions: H2O. The aerial acrobatics of the first film are supplanted by underwater ones in a region run by Tonowari ( Cliff Curtis ), the leader of a clan called the Metkayina. Himself a family man—his wife is played by Kate Winslet —Tonowari is worried about the danger the new Na’vi visitors could bring but can’t turn them away. Again, Cameron plays with moral questions about responsibility in the face of a powerful evil, something that recurs in a group of commercial poachers from Earth. They dare to hunt sacred water animals in stunning sequences during which you have to remind yourself that none of what you’re watching is real.

The film’s midsection shifts its focus away from Sully/Quaritch to the region’s children as Jake’s boys learn the ways of the water clan. Finally, the world of “Avatar” feels like it’s expanding in ways the first film didn’t. Whereas that film was more focused on a single story, Cameron ties together multiple ones here in a far more ambitious and ultimately rewarding fashion. While some of the ideas and plot developments—like the connection of Kiri to Pandora or the arc of a new character named Spider ( Jack Champion )—are mostly table-setting for future films, the entire project is made richer by creating a larger canvas for its storytelling. While one could argue that there needs to be a stronger protagonist/antagonist line through a film that discards both Jake & Quaritch for long periods, I would counter that those terms are intentionally vague here. The protagonist is the entire family and even the planet on which they live, and the antagonist is everything trying to destroy the natural world and the beings that are so connected to it.

Viewers should be warned that Cameron’s ear for dialogue hasn’t improved—there are a few lines that will earn unintentional laughter—but there’s almost something charming about his approach to character, one that weds old-fashioned storytelling to breakthrough technology. Massive blockbusters often clutter their worlds with unnecessary mythologies or backstories, whereas Cameron does just enough to ensure this impossible world stays relatable. His deeper themes of environmentalism and colonization could be understandably too shallow for some viewers—and the way he co-opts elements of Indigenous culture could be considered problematic—and I wouldn’t argue against that. But if a family uses this as a starting point for conversations about those themes then it’s more of a net positive than most blockbusters that provide no food for thought.

There has been so much conversation about the cultural impact of “Avatar” recently, as superheroes dominated the last decade of pop culture in a way that allowed people to forget the Na’vi. Watching “Avatar: The Way of Water,” I was reminded of how impersonal the Hollywood machine has become over the last few decades and how often the blockbusters that truly make an impact on the form have displayed the personal touch of their creator. Think of how the biggest and best films of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg couldn’t have been made by anyone else. “Avatar: The Way of Water” is a James Cameron blockbuster, through and through. And I still believe in him.

Available only in theaters on December 16th.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Sam Worthington as Jake Sully
Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri
Sigourney Weaver as Kiri
Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch
Kate Winslet as Ronal
Cliff Curtis as Tonowari
Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman
CCH Pounder as Mo'at
Edie Falco as General Frances Ardmore
Brendan Cowell as Mick Scoresby
Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ian Garvin
Jamie Flatters as Neteyam
Britain Dalton as Lo'ak
Trinity Bliss as Tuktirey
Jack Champion as Javier 'Spider' Socorro
Bailey Bass as Tsireya
Filip Geljo as Aonung
Duane Evans Jr. as Rotxo
Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge
Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel

Writer (story by)

Amanda Silver
James Cameron
Josh Friedman
Shane Salerno
David Brenner
John Refoua
Stephen E. Rivkin

Cinematographer

Russell Carpenter
Simon Franglen

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Global Health and Education

Avatar Movie Review Essay: Hero’s Journey in Avatar by James Cameron

Avatar movie review essay:, jake sully in avatar: hero’s journey analysis.

Throughout one’s life, one continuously enters and completes the Hero’s Journey, a universal pattern of experience, by facing and conquering numerous challenges in one’s lives. This pattern is reflected everywhere, including books and movies. One of the abundance of movies that portrays the Hero’s Journey is the hit movie Avatar by James Cameron. The movie’s hero, Jake Sully , is invited into the Avatar program on moon Pandora. Quickly, his curiosity brews him trouble, and he must gain trust of the moon’s native people, the Na’vi to find a way to get their earth’s unobtainium, a mineral. However, confused, he soon sees humans in a different light, questions their actions, and must make an essential decision to which group he will support.

Thesis in Avatar Movie Review Essay

The Separation in the Hero’s Journey: Avatar Movie

A. The Separation: Through the Call, Jake Sully, a former Marine, is sent to Pandora to replace his deceased brother, and is guided in the beginning of his journey by mentors and helpers as he enters the unknown world of Pandora.

1. The Call : Avatar Hero’s Journey

2. The Threshold : Avatar Hero’s Journey

B. Initiation and Transformation: Avatar Hero’s Journey

Jake encounters many challenges as he is initiated into the Na’vi world, and while overcoming those adversities, he is characterized more and more as a hero undergoing a journey.

1. Challenges : Avatar Hero’s Journey

2. Abyss : Avatar Hero’s Journey

C. Return: Avatar Hero’s Journey

Conclusion of Hero’s Journey in Avatar the Movie by James Cameron

IV. Conclusion : Jake Sully embarks onto the Hero’s Journey when he is invited into the Avatar Program and is detached from the human world and into the land of Pandora, where he must earn the native people’s trust. Throughout his journey, with guidance from Grace, Neytiri, Ewya, and Colonel Quaritch, he learns to communicate with the native people and understand their customs but encounters a myriad of challenges along the way. Jake’s confidence, audaciousness, and leadership is revealed as he overcomes each adversity, including his greatest fear of betraying his own race by deciding to take sides with the Na’vi and their ideals of nature at his journey’s Abyss, the war against humans. His journey significantly changes him and causes him to become more respectful of nature and the Na’vi’s culture and return to society with the contribution of peace. By watching Avatar and its plot paralleling the Hero’s Journey, the audience can then better recognize the Journey’s stages and essentially respect their lives’ experiences. They will also begin to appreciate these opportunities to grow and discover after understanding Avatar’s portrayal of the Hero’s Journey. Lastly, the audience will gain a deep appreciation of this wonderful movie’s insight about protecting our environment, embracing community, and new cultures and languages of our diverse world.

Did you enjoy Avatar the Movie, and our Essay Review? Leave your thoughts below! 😀

Passionate about lifelong learning, global health, and education! Check out our Moosmosis team's award-winning youth education site and articles @moosmosis.org Recognized by United Nations Academic Impact. View all posts by Moosmosis

8 replies »

extremely well written and in-depth analysis of the hero’s journey in Avatar!

Like Liked by 2 people

Thank you Donnie! Glad you enjoyed our informative article. 🙂 Looking forward to Avatar 2!

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‘avatar’: film review.

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Kirk Honeycutt

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As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “ Avatar .” And he did it almost from scratch. The Bottom Line A titanic entertainment -- movie magic is back!

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Review by Brian Eggert December 18, 2009

James Cameron’s strength as a director has always been spectacle more than story. While his characterizations are solid—if rooted in heavy clichés—for him, they’re secondary to a skillful exhibition teeming with groundbreaking special effects. In the past, Cameron’s primary objective hasn’t been about making you think passed the end credits or involving you on a resonant emotional level, at least not as much as wanting to blow your socks off with new technological breakthroughs displayed in nonstop action sequences. He concerns himself with what will impact his audience at this moment in cinema, admirably moving toward The New, his focus obsessively concentrated on visual bravado. Accordingly, because he’s driven toward the latest thing in moviemaking, centering all of his concentration on that one goal, the impact of his movies fades over time.

For example, The Terminator may seem corny and old-fashioned today, but at the time of its release, Stan Winston’s animatronics were revolutionary, the action eye-popping. Cameron’s Aliens dumbed down the spare, frightening universe created by Ridley Scott, but it’s a helluva entertaining action movie, one that changed our perspective on the scope of puppetry. For Terminator 2: Judgment Day , Cameron developed CGI that today looks phony, so the weak story doesn’t hold up. And as for Titanic , was the romance ever meant to overshadow the bravura sequence where the ship takes a nosedive into the sea? Probably not, but what a sequence. In each case, except perhaps Cameron’s masterpiece, The Abyss , the director limits his narrative to supply the presentation with audacity aplenty, his story and the effects therein unbalanced, the scale completely tipped to the latter.

It’s with these thoughts in mind that one should approach Avatar , Cameron’s latest foray into the realm of blockbuster moviemaking. Realizing how often Cameron fails to balance spectacle and story will help one appreciate what a wonderful motion picture he’s made here. The story is a familiar one, reminiscent of a number of science-fiction stories and a few notable films ( Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai being the most apparent), but it’s told with such passion and visual bravado that any carping about the yarn being typical is canceled out. He compiles familiar themes from his previous work, mainly The Abyss , places them in a new setting, and tells a tale so unbelievably rich and escapist that the best way to convince you is just to say, with unbridled enthusiasm, See This Film!

Set in the year 2154, the story begins on Pandora, a fertile moon orbiting a massive gas planet in a solar system far, far away. Human scientists seek to mine a valuable mineral embedded in the terrain; however, the humanoid race of indigenous people, called Na’vi, stands in their way. An analogous situation to when Europeans first began to explore the Americas, the locals are treated as animalistic savages, while corrupt and callous, the humans plan to infiltrate and transfer them somewhere not on top of the moon’s most concentrated deposit of the mineral. But the Na’vi have a biological connection to the very Nature around them, worshiping it like a deity, and through this connection, they produce a balanced and striking biosphere. However, humanity has a way of disregarding the beliefs of other people and completely ignoring what it takes for Nature to maintain stability.

Sympathetic jarhead Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic, joins the “avatar” program to try and connect with the Na’vi and find a diplomatic solution to the humans’ proposed forced relocation. Under the tutelage of Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the scientist who pioneered the program, Jake enters a genetically engineered Na’vi body remotely, existing as one of them to find a balance between cultures. While embedded in the lush Na’vi forests, he meets local Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and through her, he learns the ways of the natives and ultimately feels more at home in his versatile avatar than his broken human body. But his greedy-minded superiors—company man Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and battle-hungry Colonel Miles Quaritch (the fantastic Stephen Lang)—want their mineral and they want it now. What ensues is a rousing battle where the stakes are entrenched into the characters, so the fighting we see actually has a purpose.

Of course, Cameron’s assessment of his own genius knows no bounds; he’s so (rightfully) confident that the world he’s created is enough to occupy our minds that he doesn’t even bother formulating an actual McGuffin (the name for the moviemaker’s device to propel the plot). On Pandora, the invaluable material the humans seek is called Unobtainium, though not a word of Cameron’s creation. “Unobtainium” in reality is a tech term actually used by scientists to describe an impossible natural resource, such as a limitless, renewable source of energy or precious mineral. The script goes into little detail about what exactly Unobtainium is, just that it’s the last bastion of hope for humanity and our diminished planet. That it’s not called “pandorium” or something more specific is passive on Cameron’s part; he might as well have called it “McGuffin,” since he’s making it clear he doesn’t want to waste time on pithy details.

Most impressive is the tangible rendering of the Na’vi and the fascinating way in which the avatars resemble their hosts (most apparent with Weaver’s avatar) without ever being eerie or awkward. Though presented theatrically in 3D, even in 2D screenings the Na’vi appear three-dimensional. It takes two or three minutes for the viewer to acclimate themselves to the appearance of the Na’vi, their blue elongated forms, and their massive size in comparison to humans. But once that initial adjustment has passed, there isn’t a moment where we doubt what we’re seeing. Cameron was right. Hollywood wasn’t ready for this. These are faces that we can reach out and touch, without ever entering the Uncanny Valley where creepy motion-capture films like Beowulf , A Christmas Carol , and The Polar Express reside. Cameron doesn’t try to replicate physical creatures in this world; he breathes life into them. And if this is where motion capture is going, the advertisements are right—movies won’t be the same, at least not ones using this device. Let’s just hope the directors using this technology in the future have the patience that Cameron displayed through the last ten years of pre-production.

If showmanship was the only criteria by which Avatar was to be judged, then this would still be a raving review. Cameron has mastered the art of stringing together breathlessly entertaining action sequences, making his frequent long runtimes ( Avatar clocks in at 162 minutes) breeze by. But there’s also an admirable social commentary at work, sporting hearty themes of environmentalism and anti-militarism. Cameron often writes his villains as close-minded bureaucrats and war-mongers, probably because their single-mindedness is so easily shown as wrong in a humanist circumstance such as this, which, of course, is a historical parallel for events of both the distant past and our contemporary setting. Here, those Cameron tropes are alive and well in their most obvious but potent scenery, taking the film to unexpected levels of deep emotional involvement. By the end, when we’re cheering for those rotten humans to get their comeuppance, Cameron has made us feel guilty about the forceful, inhuman nature of our species. That such a feeling is brought to life in a sci-fi blockbuster is a glorious accomplishment.

Along with The Abyss , it’s certain that Avatar will prove to be one of Cameron’s most revisited and least dated entertainments. The film has none of the pop-culture lingo that has made some of the director’s other works unwatchable today. It has an allegorical edge that makes it a significant narrative, while also putting to use every last penny of its astronomical budget. And it has a brisk pace and epic scope to simply awe its audience into submission. Skeptics will be turned, probably easier than they were expecting. Cameron has once again proven himself a landmark director whose forward-thinking inspires changes in industry standards and whose ability to connect to his audience remains thoroughly intact. To be sure, this is an engaging experience in every sense, from the dramatic to the visual to the visceral. This is how blockbusters should be.

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“Avatar: The Way of Water,” Reviewed: An Island Fit for the King of the World

Fifteen years separated “The Godfather Part II” from “Part III,” and the years showed. The series’ director, Francis Ford Coppola , enriched the latter film with both the life experience (much of it painful) and the experience of his work on other, often daring and distinctive films with which he filled the intervening span of time. By contrast, James Cameron , who delivered the original “ Avatar ” in 2009, has delivered its sequel, “ Avatar: The Way of Water ,” thirteen years later, in which time he has directed no other feature films—and, though he doubtless has lived, the sole experience that the new movie suggests is a vacation on an island resort so remote that few outside visitors have found it. For all its sententious grandiosity and metaphorical politics, “The Way of Water” is a regimented and formalized excursion to an exclusive natural paradise that its select guests fight tooth and nail to keep for themselves. The movie’s bland aesthetics and banal emotions turn it into the Club Med of effects-driven extravaganzas.

The action begins about a decade after the end of the first installment: the American-born Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has cast his lot with the extraterrestrial Na’vis, having kept his blue Na’vi form, taken up residence with them on the lush moon of Pandora, and married the Na’vi seer Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), with whom he has had several children. The couple’s foster son, Spider (Jack Champion), a full-blooded human, is the biological child of Jake’s archenemy, Colonel Miles Quaritch, who was killed in the earlier film. Now Miles has returned, sort of, in the form of a Na’vi whose mind is infused with the late colonel’s memories. (He’s still a colonel and still played by Stephen Lang.) Miles and his platoon of Na’vified humans launch a raid to capture Jake, who, with his family, fights back and gets away—all but Spider, whom Miles captures. The Sully clan flees the forests of Pandora and reaches a remote island, where most of the movie’s action takes place.

The island is the home of the Metkayina, the so-called reef people, who—befitting their nearly amphibian lives—have a greenish cast to contrast with Na’vi blue; they also have flipper-like arms and tails. They are an insular people, who have remained undisturbed by “sky people”—humans. The Metkayina queen, Ronal (Kate Winslet), is wary of the newcomers, fearing that the arrival of Na’vis seeking refuge from the marauders will make the islands a target, but the king, Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), welcomes the Sullys nonetheless. Unsurprisingly, the foreordained incursion takes place. An expedition of predatory human scientists arrive on a quest to harvest the precious bodily fluid—the sequel’s version of unobtainium—of giant sea creatures that are sacred to the Metkayina. The invading scientists join the colonel and his troops in the hunt for Jake, resulting in a colossal sequence that combines the two adversaries’ long-awaited hand-to-hand showdown with “ Titanic ”-style catastrophe.

The interstellar military conflict is the mainspring of the story, and a link in what is intended to be an ongoing series. (The next installment is scheduled for release in 2024.) But it’s the oceanic setting of the Metkayina that provides the sequel with its essence. Cameron’s display of the enticements and wonders of the Metkayina way of life is at once the dramatic and the moral center of the movie. The Sullys find welcoming refuge in the island community, but they also must undergo initiations, ones that are centered on the children and teen-agers of both the Sullys and the Metkayina ruling family. This comes complete with the macho posturing that’s inseparable from the cinematic land of Cameronia. Two boys, a Na’vi and a Metkayina, fight after one demands, “I need you to respect my sister”; afterward, Jake, getting a glimpse at his bruised and bloodied son, is delighted to learn that the other boy got the worst of it. Later, when, during combat, trouble befalls one of the Na’vi children, it’s Neytiri, not Jake, who loses control, and Jake who gives her the old locker-room pep talk about bucking up and keeping focus on the battle at hand. The film is filled with Jake’s mantras, one of which goes, “A father protects; it’s what gives him meaning.”

What a mother does, beside fighting under a father’s command, is still in doubt. Despite the martial exploits of Neytiri, a sharpshooter with a bow and arrow, and of Ronal, who goes into battle while very pregnant, the superficial badassery is merely a gestural feminism that does little to counteract the patriarchal order of the Sullys and their allies. Jake’s statement of paternal purpose is emblematic of the thudding dialogue; compared to this, the average Marvel film evokes an Algonquin Round Table of wit and vigor. But there’s more to the screenplay of “The Way of Water” than its dialogue; the script (by Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver) is nonetheless constructed in an unusual way, and this is by far the most interesting thing about the movie. The screenplay builds the action anecdotally, with a variety of sidebars and digressions that don’t develop characters or evoke psychology but, rather, emphasize what the movie is selling as its strong point—its visual enticements and the technical innovations that make them possible.

The extended scenes of the Sullys getting acquainted with the life aquatic are largely decorative, to display the water-world that Cameron has devised, as when the young members of the family learn to ride the bird-fish that serve as the Metkayina’s mode of conveyance; when one of them dives to retrieve a shell from the deep; and when the Sullys’ adopted Na’vi daughter, Kiri (played, surprisingly, by Sigourney Weaver, both because she’s playing a teen-ager and because it’s a different role from the one she played in the 2009 film), discovers a passionate connection to the underwater realm, a function of her separate heritage. The watery light and its undulations are attractions in themselves, but the spotlight is on the flora and fauna with which Cameron populates the sea—most prominently, luminescent ones, such as anemone-like fish that light the way for deep-sea swimmers who have a spiritual connection to them, and tendril-like plants that grow from the seafloor and serve as a final resting place for deceased reef people.

Putting the movie’s design in the forefront does “The Way of Water” no favors. Cameron’s aesthetic vision is reminiscent, above all, of electric giftwares in a nineteen-eighties shopping mall, with their wavery seascapes expanded and detailed and dramatized, with the kitschy color schemes and glowing settings trading homey disposability for an overblown triumphalist grandeur. It was a big surprise to learn, after seeing the film, that its aquatic settings aren’t entirely C.G.I. conjurings—much of the film was shot underwater, for which the cast underwent rigorous training. (To prepare, Winslet held her breath for over seven minutes; to film, a deep-sea cameraman worked with a custom-made hundred-and-eighty-pound rig.) For all the difficulty and complexity of underwater filming, however, the movie is undistinguished by its cinematographic compositions, which merely record the action and dispense the design.

Yet Cameron’s frictionless, unchallenging aesthetic is more than decorative; it embodies a world view, and it’s one with the insubstantiality of the movie’s heroes, Na’vi and Metkayina alike. They, too, are works of design—and are similarly stylized to the point of uniform banality. Both are elongated like taffy to the slenderized proportions of Barbies and Kens, and they have all the diversity of shapes and sizes seen in swimsuit issues of generations past. The characters’ computer-imposed uniformity pushes the movie out of Uncanny Valley but into a more disturbing realm, one featuring an underlying, drone-like inner homogeneity. The near-absence of characters’ substance and inner lives isn’t a bug but a feature of both “Avatar” films, and, with the expanded array of characters in “The Way of Water,” that psychological uniformity is pushed into the foreground, along with the visual styles. On Cameron’s Edenic Pandora, neither the blues nor the greens have any culture but cult, religion, collective ritual. Though endowed with great skill in crafts, athletics, and martial arts, they don’t have anything to offer themselves or one another in the way of non-martial arts; they don’t print or record, sculpt or draw, and they have no audiovisual realm like the one of the movie itself. The main distinctions of character involve family affinity (as in Jake’s second mantra, “Sullys stick together”) and the dictates of biological inheritance (as in the differences imposed on Spider and Kiri by their different origins).

Cameron’s new island realm is a land without creativity, without personalized ideas, inspirations, imaginings, desires. His aesthetic of such unbroken unanimity is the apotheosis of throwaway commercialism, in which mystery and wonder are replaced by an infinitely reproducible formula, with visual pleasures microdosed. Cameron fetishizes this hermetic world without culture because, with his cast and crew under his command, he can create it with no extra knowledge, experience, or curiosity needed—no ideas or ideologies to puncture or pressure the bubble of sheer technical prowess or criticize his own self-satisfied and self-sufficient sensibility from within. He has crafted his own perfect cinematic permanent vacation, a world apart, from which, undisturbed by thoughts of the world at large, he can sell an exclusive trip to an island paradise where he’s the king. ♦

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Take the plunge: Avatar's underwater scenes are immersive and extraordinary

Justin Chang

Filmmaker James Cameron returns to the world of the Na'vi people in Avatar: The Way of Water. 20th Century Films hide caption

Filmmaker James Cameron returns to the world of the Na'vi people in Avatar: The Way of Water.

I wouldn't call Avatar: The Way of Water one of the year's best movies, but it's undoubtedly one of the best movie-going experiences I've had in a while. I had more or less the same reaction to James Cameron's first Avatar in 2009.

It told a thin but trippy Dances with Wolves -ian story about the colonizers v. the colonized, but the world building was spectacular: It was thrilling to visit the faraway moon called Pandora, with its immersive, digitally created jungle landscapes. It was thrilling, too, to root for the towering blue-skinned Na'vi people, brought to life through Cameron's pioneering use of performance-capture technology, which translates actors' movements and facial expressions into computer-generated imagery.

And so it's great to return to Pandora, although since many years have passed since the events of the first movie, there is some clunky exposition to get through. Sam Worthington again plays Jake Sully, a former human now reborn as a Na'vi man, and Zoe Saldaña returns as the fierce warrior princess Neytiri. They have four Na'vi children, including an adopted teenage daughter, Kiri. She's played, through the magic of performance capture, by the decidedly not-teenage Sigourney Weaver . And Weaver, as you might recall, played a human scientist who was killed in the first Avatar .

How the older and younger Weaver characters are connected is one of the new movie's mysteries, but it's clear that Kiri is a child of unique gifts. In one scene, she tells Jake that she feels acutely in tune with Eywa, the powerful deity who maintains balance among all living things on Pandora, saying, "I hear her heartbeat. She's so close. She's just ... there. Like a word about to be spoken."

For some viewers, a little of this Mother Earth stuff will go a long way, though I've always found Cameron's cornball sincerity hard to resist. He may push the technological envelope, but he's an earnest, old-fashioned storyteller at heart. For all its visual sophistication and its three-hour-plus running time, Avatar: The Way of Water tells a simple, straightforward story about a family in danger.

The villain here is once again Jake's archenemy, Col. Miles Quaritch, played by a ferocious Stephen Lang. You might recall that he died in the first Avatar , but Cameron's science-fiction conceit is elastic enough to get over that hurdle. And this time, Quaritch himself has been resurrected as a Na'vi, making him even more fearsome and powerful. He has a score to settle, and so Jake and Neytiri take their kids and flee to the sea, where they hide out among a group of Na'vi beach dwellers.

The movie's second act is basically a charming riff on Swiss Family Robinson , as Jake and Neytiri receive a wary welcome from the community leaders, one of them played by a glaring Kate Winslet . The family is forced to adapt to an entirely new way of life. That means becoming much better swimmers and learning to communicate with the local wildlife, including a giant talking whale-like creature called a Tulkun.

It may sound silly, but this is where the movie soars to life. Cameron knows a thing or two about underwater peril, as his movies Titanic and The Abyss bear out. He's also an accomplished diver, and here, he plunges you into the watery depths and surrounds you with the most surreal-looking alien fish specimens you've ever seen.

In these moments, I didn't feel like I was watching a movie so much as floating in one. In addition to the 3D, which I do recommend, Cameron has tried to heighten the level of detail by shooting at an unusually fast 48 frames per second. It looks a little too smooth at times, especially on dry land, but the effect is stunning underwater. I almost wished the movie would never leave the ocean floor, that it could just sustain this Jacques-Cousteau-on-mushrooms vibe for three hours.

'Avatar': Big-Picture Visions, Stirringly Realized

But that's not the Cameron way. He sometimes breaks his own spell by cutting away to Quaritch, which often feels jarring and not that interesting. And as superb as Cameron's eye is, his dialogue remains as tin-eared as ever. But everything does come together in the movie's action-heavy final act, which features extraordinarily well-orchestrated set-pieces both above and below water.

Quaritch is joined by some deadly human fighters too, and Avatar: The Way of Water encourages us — successfully — to root against humanity for all the destruction it's unleashed on the world. We've seen that before, including in the first Avatar , but it speaks to Cameron's real achievement, which is to bring us into total identification with these computer-generated Na'vi characters. I don't know if that will be enough to sustain the Avatar series over three upcoming sequels, but I'm already looking forward to another trip to this alien moon. Until then, Pandora, so long, and thanks for all the fish.

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Movie Review | 'Avatar'

A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic

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By Manohla Dargis

Dec. 17, 2009

With “Avatar” James Cameron has turned one man’s dream of the movies into a trippy joy ride about the end of life our moviegoing life included as we know it. Several decades in the dreaming and more than four years in the actual making, the movie is a song to the natural world that was largely produced with software, an Emersonian exploration of the invisible world of the spirit filled with Cameronian rock ’em, sock ’em pulpy action. Created to conquer hearts, minds, history books and box-office records, the movie one of the most expensive in history, the jungle drums thump is glorious and goofy and blissfully deranged.

The story behind the story, including a production budget estimated to top $230 million, and Mr. Cameron’s future-shock ambitions for the medium have already begun to settle into myth (a process partly driven by the publicity, certainly). Every filmmaker is something of a visionary, just by virtue of the medium. But Mr. Cameron, who directed the megamelodrama “Titanic” and, more notably, several of the most influential science-fiction films of the past few decades (“The Terminator,” “Aliens” and “The Abyss”), is a filmmaker whose ambitions transcend a single movie or mere stories to embrace cinema as an art, as a social experience and a shamanistic ritual, one still capable of producing the big WOW.

The scale of his new movie, which brings you into a meticulous and brilliantly colored alien world for a fast 2 hours 46 minutes, factors into that wow. Its scope is evident in an early scene on a spaceship (the year is 2154), where the passengers, including a paraplegic ex-Marine, Jake (Sam Worthington, a gruffly sensitive heartthrob), are being roused from a yearslong sleep before landing on a distant inhabited moon, Pandora. Jake is woken by an attendant floating in zero gravity, one of many such aides. As Jake himself glides through the bright cavernous space, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore, as someone soon quips (a nod to “The Wizard of Oz,” Mr. Cameron’s favorite film). You also know you’re not in the gloom of “The Matrix.”

Though it’s easy to pigeonhole Mr. Cameron as a gear head who’s more interested in cool tools (which here include 3-D), he is, with “Avatar,” also making a credible attempt to create a paradigm shift in science-fiction cinema. Since it was first released in 1999, “The Matrix,” which owes a large debt to Mr. Cameron’s own science-fiction films as well as the literary subgenre of cyberpunk, has hung heavily over both SF and action filmmaking. Most films that crib from “The Matrix” tend to borrow only its slo-mo death waltzes and leather fetishism, keeping its nihilism while ditching the intellectual inquiries. Although “Avatar” delivers a late kick to the gut that might be seen as nihilistic (and how!), it is strangely utopian.

It doesn’t take Jake long to feel the good vibes. Like Neo, the savior-hero of the “Matrix” series played by Keanu Reeves, Jake is himself an avatar because he’s both a special being and an embodiment of an idea, namely that of the hero’s journey. What initially makes Jake unusual is that he has been tapped to inhabit a part-alien, part-human body that he controls, like a puppeteer, from its head to its prehensile tail. Like the rest of the human visitors who’ve made camp on Pandora, he has signed on with a corporation that’s intent on extracting a valuable if mysterious substance from the moon called unobtainium, a great whatsit that is an emblem of humanity’s greed and folly. With his avatar, Jake will look just like one of the natives, the Na’vi, a new identity that gives the movie its plot turns and politics.

The first part of Jake’s voyage for this is, above all, a boy’s rocking adventure, if one populated by the usual tough Cameron chicks takes him from a wheelchair into a 10-foot, blue-skinned Na’vi body. At once familiar and pleasingly exotic, the humanoid Na’vi come with supermodel dimensions (slender hips, a miniature-apple rear); long articulated digits, the better to grip with; and the slanted eyes and twitchy ears of a cat. (The gently curved stripes that line their blue skin, the color of twilight, bring to mind the markings on mackerel tabby cats.) For Jake his avatar, which he hooks into through sensors while lying in a remote pod in a semiconscious state, is at first a giddy novelty and then a means to liberation.

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Avatar: The Way of Water Critical Reactions Vary More Than the Frame Rates

It’s here. Earthling movie critics are officially versed in water and its ways as early reviews for Avatar: The Way of Water begin to come in. It’s no surprise that the technical aspects of James Cameron’s passion project remain marvelous , particularly in the rendering of alien aquatic life and action sequences. However, critical reaction to Cameron’s variable frame rate … varies. Then there are the more basic storytelling aspects in which the sequel appears to improve on the original, at least to some critics, who are invested in the story of Na’vi teens and Pandora’s hyperintelligent space whales. Others find the plot overly familiar and the dialogue rote. Below, critics who sat through three hours of Avatar: The Way of Water live to tell a whale of a tale.

“For starters, the effects work is unbelievable; I still haven’t entirely wrapped my head around the fact that none of this stuff actually exists, that it’s all a meticulously rendered digital environment. But, more important, Cameron hasn’t lost the ability to convey his dorky-sweet enthusiasm to the audience. It’s hard not to lose oneself amid the gentle, flowing cadences of this exquisitely created undersea universe, where the water enveloping the characters gradually becomes a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all living beings.” — Bilge Ebiri , Vulture

“But although I was not surprised that The Way of Water ’s visuals blew me away, I was shockingly invested in the emotional complications of the Sully family (many threads are left dangling for the already confirmed Avatar 3 ). Maintaining a sense of stakes will be necessary for the series going forward, especially if it plans on rolling out new entries at a quicker pace. But for The Way of Water , the decadence is more than enough—for cinemas that have been starved of authentic spectacle, finally, here’s a gorgeous three-course meal of it.” — David Sims , The Atlantic

“It’s the most rapturous, awe-inducing, only in theaters return to the cinema of attractions since Godard experimented with double exposure 3D in Goodbye to Language , whether swimming with schools of alien fish or introducing us to the four-eyed, 300-foot-long whale-like tulkun (who prove central to the plot and communicate in subtitled Papyrus), these scenes have more in common with VR or lucid dreaming than whatever rinky-dink CGI we’re forced to swallow with every new superhero movie, and Cameron lets us soak up every frame. If we can fall in love with this world and be compelled by the fight to save it, why can’t we do the same with our own?” — David Ehrlich , IndieWire

“Maybe Cameron reacquainted himself with the work of Sam Raimi. Maybe he’s drinking from the same cup as S.S. Rajamouli , who made the magnificent, absolutely ludicrous Indian import RRR . In The Way of Water , Cameron leans all the way into manic mayhem, smash-cutting from one outrageous image to the next. The final act of this movie shows off a freeing attitude he’s never fully embraced before in his action — even action that’s strikingly similar, like the massive sinking ship sequence in Titanic . James Cameron has some expertise in this arena, but this time out, it feels like he’s having a lot more fun.” — Jordan Hoffman , Polygon

“This wildly entertaining film isn’t a retread of Avatar , but a film in which fans can pick out thematic and even visual elements of Titanic , Aliens , The Abyss , and The Terminator films. It’s as if Cameron has moved to Pandora forever and brought everything he cares about. (He’s also clearly never leaving.) Cameron invites viewers into this fully realized world with so many striking images and phenomenally rendered action scenes that everything else fades away.” — Brian Tallerico , RogerEbert.com

“Cue another immersive, action-packed adventure, but this time with a more nuanced message. Whereas Avatar bashed its audience on the head with repeated references to spirituality and the balance of life, Way Of The Water is primarily about family (though there is one gut-wrenching scene that makes for a most effective anti-hunting advert). It finds a believable way to bring back characters from the first movie, and sets up the overarching plot for future instalments. This is sharp, considered storytelling.” — Ali Shutler , NME

“The submarine world of this film is, in its way, its chief character and its whole point. The move from land- to sea-based existence is the way a new film was created. But the sea world is imagined with a lot of cliche. Frankly, there isn’t a single interesting visual image and the whole thing has the non-briny smell of a MacBook Pro. Finding Nemo was more vivid.” — Peter Bradshaw , The Guardian

“How much you care about the fate of a bunch of outsize blue people will depend on your appetite for a sci-fi survival story that draws from classic Westerns while upping the stakes with the threat of genocide. Either way, this is a big movie, monumental even, that justifies its three hours-plus of screen time and its mammoth financial investment.” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“It’s best to not think too hard about certain things — for example, at least one immaculate conception — and just weather others, as in one long bit akin to an extremely cruel animal documentary. And while the visual effects are on the whole pretty fantastic, the film every so often resembles a video game or a theme-park ride that seems sort of wonky compared to the more sumptuous parts.” — Brian Truitt , USA Today

“And while his VFX team has done a remarkable job blooming emotion on their green and blue visages, the lackluster writing gives these performances suffocatingly little to play with. The likes of Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, and Interview with a Vampire scene-stealer Bailey Bass are squandered in paper-thin roles, of women who are either beatific in awe of nature or baring their teeth in tears. These are not people but poster girls either of bliss or pain. And so their emotional journeys feel hollow, even as we can see their worlds falling apart.” — Kristy Puchko , Mashable

“Edie Falco thanklessly barks exposition in fatigues, a scientist randomly reveals that he possesses the key to eternal life, and the finale resorts to cheap bathos before setting up forthcoming sequels. Whenever it’s not losing itself in kinetic mayhem, The Way of Water is interminable and full of itself—and ultimately, that turns out to be most of the time. In the first of his many functional voiceovers, Jake intones, ‘The most dangerous thing about Pandora is that you may come to love her too much.’ That’s clearly true for Cameron, but he should speak for himself.” — Nick Schager , The Daily Beast

“ Avatar: The Way of Water explores enough new story beats, and raises the stakes for its characters through tension to justify the continuation of the first film’s narrative. Engaging, enjoyable, and one of the most beautiful films of the year, The Way of the Water is a transformative movie experience that energizes and captivates the senses through its visual storytelling, making the return to Pandora well worth the wait.” — Mae Abdulbaki , ScreenRant

“But it’s worth saying this: When Cameron’s 3D cauldron of spells is at a high boil, the end result is nothing less than an upgrade on reality. At its best, you find yourself resenting the edges of the screen, for keeping you from feeling fully immersed in this world.” — Liz Shannon Miller , Consequence

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by James Cameron

Avatar study guide.

Avatar is a science-fiction movie directed and produced by James Cameron , and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was released on December 10, 2009. The film is set in the middle of the 22nd century, and follows the colonization of Pandora, a moon planet, after the depletion of Earth’s resources. It follows the struggle for resources between the human colonists and the native Na’vi population.

Creator James Cameron began developing the concept of the film in 1994. However, he did not write the screenplay until 2006. It premiered in 2009 to high praise from critics, who marveled at the innovative and impressive visual effects. The film stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. The film remains the highest grossing film of all time, and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, of which it won three.

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Avatar Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Avatar is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Jake Sully is a paraplegic. Once a Marine, he enlists as a part of the Avatar Program after his twin brother is killed.

Is there a soliloquy in this movie?

Do you mean the first Avatar or second? I don't recall a soliloquy-like speech in the first one.

Why did Neytiri tell Jake he was ready?

Chapter please/

Study Guide for Avatar

Avatar study guide contains a biography of James Cameron, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About Avatar
Avatar Summary
Character List
Director's Influence

Essays for Avatar

Avatar essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Avatar by James Cameron.

Interstellar: Visual Splendor Eclipsing Storytelling & The Assertion of Film Values

Wikipedia Entries for Avatar

Introduction

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