Avatar: The Way Of Water review: James Cameron returns to the seas with a celebratory theatrical event

In order to seize the significance of the elongated wait for James Cameron’s sweet-natured, splendid, and dizzyingly futuristic Avatar: The Way Of Water, it’s tempting to reach for a well-known line from Titanic: “It’s been 84 years.”

Indeed, the sequel to the innovator extraordinaire’s smashing 2009 blockbuster—with all the jaw-dropping world-building that graced theater screens through 3D glasses—has been long coming. So long, in fact, that those who didn’t luxuriate in Pandora during Avatar’s recent theatrical re-release might have forgotten the distinct smell of its fresh paint. Luckily, with the new 3D installment, Cameron puts forth something so alive, so richly textured and immersive that what could one say other than, “it’s been worth the wait”?

This outcome, one that demands the biggest theater screen you can find, is surely not a surprise coming from the perennially forward-looking filmmaker of the sensational sequels Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. After all, Cameron always seemed at unusual ease with follow-ups, maybe because he’s always searching for ways to improve upon, even revolutionize, what’s already behind him. When it comes to James Cameron, no one can dare him to “hold my beer” better than Cameron himself.

Avatar: The Way Of Water not only delivers upon everything its predecessor established, but advances them in ways gleaming and ocean-deep, through the eyes and heart of a cinematic storyteller with a passionate and well-documented love of the sea. (Remember, Cameron once captured his own record-breaking solo dive to Earth’s lowest point.) Indeed, what is Titanic if not, among its other themes, a humbling plunge into the wonder, danger, and power of the ocean? What’s Abyss or the 2014 National Geographic film James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenge if not the utmost proof of Cameron’s childlike awe of the planet’s bottomless depths?

When watching—or more accurately, experiencing—Avatar: The Way Of Water, the thing that will perhaps feel most awe-inspiring is the dignified beauty of the underwater ecosystems Cameron has created. It doesn’t matter that none of the glow-in-the-dark marine life and vibrantly gorgeous fluorescent fish you will see beneath the blue surfaces of Pandora actually exist. What matters is that you will instantly believe that they do, no doubt due to Cameron distantly and dreamily representing psychedelic versions of the countless finned creatures he knows well and has maybe even seen with his own eyes. In that, the world of The Way Of Water—chiefly occupied by reef people called the Metkayina Clan—feels safe, cozy and comforting when compared to the stunning rainforest renderings of the first Avatar, which at first glance were hostile and dangerous for outsiders. And that makes sense, since water is also where Cameron himself is most content, most undeniably at home.

However, his returning protagonist Jake Sully—a.k.a. chosen one Toruk Makto (Sam Worthington)—doesn’t share Cameron’s proficiency of deep seas at the start. Throughout the film’s sometimes dragging (but entirely necessary) first hour and act, screenwriters Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver remind audiences of the union of venerable ex-Marine Jake (here, fully living in his Na’vi body) and resourceful Na’vi Neytiri (the terrific Zoe Saldaña), now married with children. But the danger from Na’vi’s worst enemies—the greedy “Sky People”—persists. So the Sullys have no choice but to make the sacrifice of leaving the jungle to protect the Na’vi from becoming targets of ruinous humankind, men who heartlessly mine and destroy Pandora for its valuable minerals.

And so the second act of The Way Of Water picks up where the former installment’s Dances With Wolves-adjacent plot ends, with the Sullys traveling across picturesque mountains, isles, and high seas to foreign lands they haven’t known before. Amongst the unit are Jake and Neytiri’s children: the golden child Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), the sidelined Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), the feisty Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and the nature- and animal-loving adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), whose mom, Dr. Grace Augustine, was a major character in the first film. When Spider (Jack Champion), a goodhearted, Pandora-bound human kid that the Sully children love, unwittingly helps out returning antagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephan Lang), the Sullys reach the above-mentioned (and aqua-green) Metkayina Clan and join the ranks of leaders Ronal (Kate Winslet, in her first Cameron collaboration since Titanic) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), who agree to take the refugees in and teach them, you know, the way of water.

Admittedly, this integration process while Sky People pursue the Sullys is a little more of the same, plotting-wise. But the aquatic world that surrounds them is so dazzling that you won’t mind a story that’s soothingly familiar, freshened up by the presence of the Sully kids who get their fair share of alienation, adventure, and youthful romance once amongst the Metkayina children Tsireya (Bailey Bass) and Aonung (Filip Geljo). While the impossibly adorable and underwater natural Kiri is the MVP, the bullied Lo’ak living under the shadow of Neteyam especially receives a lovely storyline here, befriending a spectacular and valuable whale-like sea beast that is just as much of an outcast as he is.

Still, it’s not entirely essential to fully memorize the machinations of this new Avatar with all its anti-colonization, anti-establishment, and pro-environment shades as mainstay preoccupations for Cameron. Just know that the filmmaker astoundingly wraps his time-honored good-vs-evil package inside the most relatable emotions that honor concepts such as loyalty, sacrifice, friendship, love, and family that has equal room for both mothers-daughters and fathers-sons. And that accessibility, alongside Cameron’s knack for lucid and consistent big-budget storytelling—a feature most studio blockbusters lack these days—is why The Way Of Water packs a punch throughout its mind-blowing set-pieces and sometimes distracting high-frame-rate segments. In simplest terms, Cameron invites the viewers back into his universe in the first act, dips their toes into a brand-new offshoot of it in the second, and rocks them there in the third, entertainingly feasting on plenty of Aliens, Terminator, and yes, Titanic references throughout.

It’s no fun to spoil all the Cameron mixtape nods here. But allow me to at least indicate that you will get a new mini-Titanic in the movie’s astonishing third act once the Pandora folk—brought to life by actual performances through Motion Capture technology—and Sky People eventually face off amid the moon’s reefs and beyond. There will be claustrophobic underwater perils (for which the cast apparently practiced free diving), over-flooded tunnels, and colossal metal structures splitting and sinking with a thud, all captured with epic elegance by director of photography Russell Carpenter (also of Titanic) and edited with uncompromising coherence by Cameron, Stephen Rivkin, David Brenner, and John Refoua.

The whole package here is so ambitious, yet intimate and gently tempered in its quieter moments, that it feels heartening to be reminded of what a big-budget Hollywood movie can be when it refuses to get crushed under pointless piles of rubble and noise. Confessionally, this critic wishes that Cameron had room in his schedule to put out more than one film in over a decade and original movies in addition to the ones that belong to this big beautiful franchise. Still, it’s wonderful to have him back with a picture that feels like a theatrical event to be celebrated, nowadays a retro idea occasionally reminded by the likes of Nope and Top Gun: Maverick. These are Cameron’s own waters, and it’s significant to see him effortlessly swim in them again.