Movie Review | Avatar 2 plays on Cameron’s strengths to deliver a breathtaking epic
“Avatar 2” is the movie event of the decade. Released after 13 years in development under the watchful eye of director and perfectionist James Cameron — nicknamed the “king of sequels” — the anticipation for “the motion picture event of a generation” saw a momentous resurgence once its trailer finally released. Returning to expand on the playground he originally built, mounting it on a much more massive scale than any other film — no, IP — in existence today, the real question was: how do you take the most profitable movie franchise of all time and make it even bigger?
Pushing the boundaries of big budget blockbusters, James Cameron is the definitive authority on supersized cinema — regardless of the genre he chooses. Cameron has written and directed some of the most successful movies of all time, which were also notably the most expensive films made at the time of their release; working at the biggest scale possible has been the director’s forte from the very beginning of his career and to date, all of his films have made their money back and more.
However, to understand how “Avatar” has stayed relevant in an oversaturated market already fatigued with multi-billion-dollar IP franchises, we must look into why James Cameron made Avatar in the first place. Eager to embark on the project immediately after finishing ”Titanic”, he wanted to be able to make a movie featuring characters "who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world". It was the very quest to realise this fantasy that spurred on a seismic leap forward for how technology and cinematic experience could achieve new frontiers in storytelling.
With Avatar 2, James Cameron returns to give us the experience of a gigantic adventure that takes you on an all-consuming emotional experience. Pandora isn’t simply a fictional world: Cameron elevates it to an immersive, theme park quality experience every time the lights fade out in the theatre and the audience are plunged into the ground-breaking technology that has made the film possible — a complete experience of sight and sound. Having experienced it firsthand, the film makes a strong case for itself as the theatre setting being the only way of experiencing it in all its cinematic glory. Avatar 2 is a veritable pastiche of Cameron's filmography combined with his greatest passions in life — resulting in a fully realised, impeccably rendered world inhabited with fleshed out characters both old and new — a deeply personal film which resonates with the rest of us on those merits alone.
For all the spectacle on display, Avatar 2 never strays from the core of the movie: focusing on family, emotion and interpersonal relationships, elevating it to an all around superior experience than its action packed prequel.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his Na’vi mate Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) are forced to flee their land and the Omaticaya tribe in exile, when Jake’s old nemesis — Colonel Miles Quaritch — is resurrected, having his memories transplanted in an avatar unit. The return of the “Sky People” results in the widespread destruction of the Na’vi’s forests as the outsiders battle for control against the locals, this time around with a mission to colonise Pandora, for “...Earth is over”.
As the family looks for refuge, travelling across the rich landscape of Pandora, we are allowed enough time to immerse ourselves into its alien geography. The scale of the world is not lost on us when the tired Sullys finally arrive at the dwelling of the reef people, nor is the fact that we are indeed witnessing the unfolding of a new frontier on Pandora. The Metkayina, led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his mate Ronal (Kate Winslet), aid the Sullys by providing the family refuge on their island albeit reluctantly. Cameron’s redesign of Pandora begins emerging as we explore the ways of the island through the eyes of Jake and his children who must both struggle to fit into their new lifestyle (quite literally), apart from finding their own happiness in the world — together.
Cameron seamlessly addresses the issue of diversity and identity in exile within the rich history of the Na’vi through the tensions and personal angst of the Sully children, including the human child, Spider (Jack Champion), in the movie. It is a significantly larger and multi-layered story with real stakes involved for all its characters with nothing being handed out to our protagonists - every victory is earned.
This is where the central conflict of the second movie emerges. Motivated by greed, the Sky People continue their gratuitous exploitation of Pandora’s resources even as the battle for control goes on with the local population and the Colonel prepares himself to exact his vendetta against Sully. While Avatar focused solely on the humans’ mission of extracting from the living world at a cost to its life force, now they turn their attention to extracting the life force of Pandora itself.
The Colonel, a caricature of a comic book villain at first, benefits from being brought back stronger, more driven and lethal than before. With the new advantages of the Avatar body, he feels distinctly dangerous and menacing whenever he has been given the screen time, effectively raising stakes for every central character that crosses his path resulting in a much more satisfying arc for the antagonist this time. The “big money” entity that the fictional RDA is made far more dangerous by extension, because of how willingly expendable everyone else is to them — even their own kind, the humans.
If anyone had doubted the potential of Cameron’s vision of Pandora as an effective metaphor of the real world, the sequel quickly dispels those suspicions by staying completely accessible to the general viewer, on the whole. The old favourites return but don’t overshadow the new characters, giving them room to further the mythos of the world that will keep us satisfied throughout. The children steal the limelight away from the older, seasoned actors and their plotlines offer us insight into the direction of the planned sequels.
Avatar 2 lingers upon the visual beauty of its living environments, allowing us to soak into its splendour because that is what makes the grief real: You truly feel the loss of a beloved animal the Na’vi has a life-bond with; the destruction of the reef dwellers’ homes to discourage dissent hit us harder this time around because the he allows us enough time to seep into the hymn of the Na’vi: that we are all connected with the world and by that extension, to one another.
The underwater CG, with its seamless motion capture and epic action set pieces translate successfully to the screen. The fantastic creature design and water physics must have taken years by themselves to perfect. The process of building Avatar was an extremely complex one from the get-go and shifting it underwater was an even bolder decision that paid off spectacularly, justifying the work of over 13 years it took to achieve the marvel on screen. That effort makes even more sense when you realise that it was all a labour of love for James Cameron.
It was a setting which allowed him to explore and express everything he needed to say about conservation, sustainability, ecology as well as human greed in a fantastical landscape to its maximum effect.
For all its impact on the cultural zeitgeist of a generation, Avatar’s tendency to lean on Jake Sully as the “white savior” was considered widely problematic. The characters’ roots were meant to be a reflection of Cameron himself — an eager explorer with a penchant for solving real world problems. The deeper messages were thus lost in translation for the wider audience with its heavy handed emphasis on the technological world-building.
On that note, it only made sense that James Cameron chose to collaborate with co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver — the brilliant minds behind the spectacularly modern adaptation of the “The Planet of the Apes” — immortalised in pop culture for their sensitive depiction of racism, environmentalism and colonialism. Benefiting from their insight, the narrative arcs this time around are far more direct and sequentially solve any problems in storytelling raised by the first film. The ideas touch you more profoundly because there is no solipsism — instead, they come built within the framework of its fantasy world. Another extremely praise worthy addition is its treatment of indigenous identities through the exploration of Na’vi culture: while the other clans had been referenced in the original, it is satisfying to see their individual mythology unfold in real time through the events of the movie.
Cameron also makes the interesting choice turning to his long-time collaborator and (most notably) the cinematographer to Titanic — Russell Carpenter — to take over the cinematography of the film. To his end, Carpenter delivers to the grandeur by his deft handling of presenting Pandora’s diverse landscapes in a scaled up format well-befitting James Cameron’s vision of an upgraded cinematic experience. Carpenter’s expertise with filming underwater scenes is also on full display as there are several high level technical choices that are blended seamlessly with the rest of the visuals to create an experience that simply feels like floating in a dream of Cameron’s making.
Revisiting Pandora in its latest ‘avatar’ makes the runtime of the movie worth every second of it, especially because we are now one with its “mind world” just like the Na’vi. One can only imagine what James Cameron has in store for us next.
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Jack Champion, Edie Falco, Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Bailey Bass
Director: James Cameron
Writer(s): James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Cinematographer: Russell Carpenter
Editor: David Brenner, James Cameron, John Refoua, Stephen Rivkin
