Avatar: The Way of Water-Review

After over a decade of waiting, director James Cameron finally released the “Avatar” sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water”. The movie hit the ground running, overtaking “Top Gun: Maverick” as the number one worldwide release of 2022, and has hit $1.4 billion in global box office sales. The movie follows pretty much the same narrative structure as the first one does, but with a slight twist. The Na’vi people fight once again to save their planet from the Sky People sent from Earth, but this time with water on their side. 

The movie brings back the same cast, featuring Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi, with a few new faces such as Kate Winslet and Cliff Curtis. The sequel follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and their children as they navigate trying to save Pandora from humans that are attempting to take it over. 

As the movie catches the audience up to what has happened since the last one, it details the lives Jake and Neytiri have built with each other, including the birth of their five children and the coronation of Jake Sully, also known as Toruk Macdow, who becomes the newfound leader of the Na’vi forest clan. It becomes obvious from the beginning that the Sky People are still trying to invade Pandora and make it their own, but the Na’vi forest people have adapted to various new ways of protecting themselves and their homes. 

After an unexpected return of a character from the first film, it forces Jake and his family to leave the forest clan and venture out to hide with the water clan. The water clan lives above water, but their whole life revolves around the ocean and the animals that live in it. Jake and his family take a while to be accepted into the Na’vi water clan, but once they do they catch on to their ways very quickly. Jake’s children (Neteyam, Lo’ak, Kiri, and Tuktirey), are hesitant to live with a whole new clan at first, but after a while, they all fall in love with the lifestyle, and the people who live there. 

Eventually, Jake and his family are found and must prepare themselves to band together with the water clan against the Sky People. In a huge battle between them and a whole boat of Sky People, we get to see how much the family has learned while being a part of the water clan. 

We learn more and more about the entire movie about Jake and Neytiri’s children and come to love their family as our own by the end. The family bond they have and the power the Na’vi clans hold is stronger than anything, and that is proven indefinitely by the end of the movie. 

Of course, it’s not over yet. The movie ends and the audience is left with a few questions, questions that will most likely be answered in the next three films to be released in upcoming years.  

Like the first movie, the images spread across the screen make the audience feel like Pandora is a real place, and the Na’vi people are a real population. The special effects are so much more realistic in the sequel. The facial expressions and characters’ movements look so real as if they really filmed it on a different planet.

Very rarely does a film stick with me enough that I go see it in theaters more than once, but this movie was made so beautifully. It holds so many themes that it was worth seeing it twice, and I get goosebumps every time. James Cameron knows exactly how to take an audience’s breath away with the beautiful images he creates on our screens, while also making us laugh and connect with the characters.