Was “Avatar’ sequel worth waiting for? Kind of…

2009 was a long time ago, especially in pop culture terms. In 2009, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was in its infancy, there were only four “Fast & Furious” movies, and streaming outlets like Netflix had yet to take over the world. Oh, and there was this little movie called “Avatar” that came out and made more money at the box office than any film had up to that point.

Since then, “Avatar” fans have waited patiently for writer/director James Cameron to stop looking for shipwrecks or whatever he does in his free time and make the sequels he’s been promising for years. Now, in the tail end of 2022, Cameron has finally given us “Avatar: The Way of Water.” But thirteen years is a long time. Was “Way of Water” worth the wait?

Kind of. Somewhat. Yes and no.

“Way of Water” is a movie that’s exactly what you might expect in an “Avatar” film: it’s a beautiful but very long movie filled with thin characters, awful dialogue and unsubtle racial and political metaphors. There are action scenes where stuff blows up really good dispersed among the scenes where the lead characters learn about and grow to love their environment. The movie is a whole bunch of plusses and minuses.

First, the minuses:

• The protagonist is still too one-note. One of the biggest issues is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) remains a pretty uninteresting character. Part of the problem is that Worthington is a boring actor but he doesn’t get much help from the writers as far as giving Sully depth or complexity.
• The bad guys are even more poorly written. Quartich (Stephen Lang), the main antagonist from the first movie, returns, only this time he’s even less interesting because his motivation is weaker and we’re stuck watching his big blue alien avatar the whole movie instead of Lang. And if you think Quatich is bad, wait til you see the lame pack of space whalers he hooks up with.
• The story is pretty tired. Let’s give “Way of Water” some credit because its story doesn’t seem cut-and-pasted from “Dances with Wolves” the way the first movie did. But its family-on-the-run-trying-to-find-a-haven-from-the-bad-guys storyline is still pretty hackneyed and predictable.
• The dialogue is trash. There were three writers on this screenplay. Couldn’t one of them write dialogue for these characters that wasn’t so clunky and witless?
• Cameron rips himself off. Let’s just say if you’ve seen “Titanic,” the big climax of this movie may feel awfully familiar.

Now for the good stuff.

• The visuals conjure actual wonder. The visuals in “Way of Water” are pretty impressive and when the film goes underwater, the imagery takes on an almost ballet-like quality that conjures real wonder. If there’s only one reason for you to see this movie, the visuals are it.
• Neytiri kicks some booty. Zoe Saldana is excellent once again as Neytiri. She’s vulnerable, yet powerful. She’ll break your heart in one scene and have you pumping your fist in the air in the next.
• This movie has something other than entertaining you on its mind. A lot of blockbusters just want you hanging on the edge of your seat for two hours but “Way of Water” brings up themes of the militarization of corporations, the morality of commercial hunters and how the young often have to be trusted with the future for the future to get better. These themes aren’t always handled too smoothly, but I appreciated that they were there.

Overall, “Avatar: The Way of Water” is a mixed blessing but the bottom line is that if you want to be transported to a world you’ve never experienced, few films will do that as well as this film does.

3 Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA rating: PG-13