Avatar 2: The Way of Water Review: Avatar: The Way of Water is that cinema that you know once you watched the first 15 mins, you get this feeling that this is pure blockbuster cinema that you’ve been longing for years.
It felt like a movie made by a director who knows shit what he is doing, who knows how to make a blockbuster picture that will once again leave its footprint in pop culture. What else to say to describe that feeling, maybe ‘mighty’, and ‘rare’?
And obviously, Avatar 2 is equally as great as Avatar 1. But interestingly, or I don’t know what else to dub it, it’s also as same as Avatar 1 in a lot of ways yet somehow it managed to be an entirely different film.
If you notice, Avatar 2 literally has the same blueprint as Avatar 1. It’s got the same plot points, and a lot of similar moments rehashed but enhanced a bit. However, does that undermine the quality of the film? Absolutely not! It’s made by this old man named James Cameron who knows how to put the audience on the edge of their seat. And he did it once again this time.
Nevertheless, when I said it’s almost as same as Avatar 1, it also applies to the narrative side which doesn’t bother to be anything new. It’s that classic family storyline, which 90% of the time doesn’t work for me because I’m honestly tired of seeing the lead sermonizing about family and shoving those mawkish, corny messages down our throats.
HOWEVER this film did not DO that, THANK YOU, James Cameron! He perfectly captured that aspect of family in a way that is not overly dramatic or hyperbolic. It’s just perfect the way it captured that essence, and I wouldn’t hesitate to call it an exemplar.
But if there’s one thing that I’d gripe about, Maybe Cameron should have looked more into the Antagonist’s motivations. He’s evil, for the sake of being evil, being told by the screenwriter to be evil. At least he has better motivations in the first film. But you know what, I’d let that slide because at some point, I wanted to kill him myself. Moreover, James did something ‘extraordinary’ in the last 10 minutes to make up for it.
Overall, I suppose I liked this more than the first part nevertheless, or maybe it’s recency bias, or it’s just that I’m still not over the experience of watching the film two times so far. The more I think about it, the more I like it because It’s that cinema that has a great rewatch value.
‘Of Course, This Is Without A Doubt The Greatest Visual Effects Film Of All Time’ There’s no denying that, and we don’t have to debate about this, everybody saw that coming.
Honestly, I’m down with James Cameron’s recent remarks:
Speaking to BrandonDavis of Comicbook, Cameron said “Weta Effects, as it’s now known, is the best. Right? I mean, ILM does great work, but when it comes to the kind of emotive facial stuff that we’re doing…I mean, Thanos? Come on. Give me a break.” You saw this [Avatar 2] movie. It’s not even close.”
Watching the film, I couldn’t agree more. Those CGI characters in the film are just humans, to be honest. It’s like Cameron brought these creatures from Pandora to the camera. So he wasn’t kidding when he said that. It’s true, and yes, Thanos lacked something, which is something that Cameron is referring to.
SPOILERS: Beautiful Analogy in Climax
There’s this one shot towards the end of the film, when Sully took his first-born child-Neteyam into his arms, and held him up in the air, celebrating his birth, and it slowly fades into Neteyam’s corpse resting in the fetal position (speaking directly to his genesis) and now being drawn out of energy, as Sully narrates “the people say all energy is borrowed and someday you have to give it back.”
This is where Avatar peaked for me. I said to myself “This is CINEMA“
I hope everybody recognizes that shot and makes into the list of greatest shots in movie history. Honestly, it is on par with that iconic shot (bone to the spaceship) in 2001: A Space Odyssey!
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