Earlier today, I went to AMC theaters to watch James Cameron's latest adventure on the extrasolar moon of Pandora in Avatar: The Way of Water.
Just like 2009's Avatar, The Way of Water was just as visually beautiful and epic on the big screen! But the sequel had a better storyline than the original film...even though villain-wise, it might make certain moviegoers like myself think of recent flicks like last year's The Matrix Resurrections.
[Actually, I'm thinking of all of The Matrix sequels in general—as I'm referring to the evolution of Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) throughout those installments.]
The first Avatar movie was derided for having a plot that was similar to those of Fern Gully, Braveheart and Cameron's own Aliens, but The Way of Water had an entertaining story that was already in high gear from the very first scene of the film.
Like the Fast & Furious movies, The Way of Water placed a huge emphasis on family—with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) doing everything they could to protect their four children after they were forced to move to a distant seaside village in response to their forest home being ravaged by the "sky people" [led by by General Ardmore (Edie Falco) and Stephen Lang (portraying a new incarnation of Quaritch from the previous film)] once more.
Also back in The Way of Water are Sigourney Weaver (as Dr. Grace Augustine and Kiri) and Giovanni Ribisi (as Parker Selfridge), while Kate Winslet reunited with her Titanic director after 25 years to play the Na'vi warrior Ronal...the tsahìk of the Metkayina clan. (Yes, I looked that up on Google just now.)
What really impressed me about The Way of Water was its music. Composer Simon Franglen did a wonderful job keeping true to the original Avatar score that was conducted by the late and great James Horner.
As mentioned at the start of this review, the visuals in The Way of Water were just absolutely beautiful! Weta and Industrial Light & Magic did a terrific job making Pandora look even more majestic on the big screen than it did 13 years ago.
I saw The Way of Water in the traditional 2-D format today, I look forward to seeing it on IMAX 3-D next!
PS: Those tulkun (Pandora's essentially bulletproof whales who are smarter than humans in The Way of Water) are awesome. Carry on.
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