James Cameron returns back to the camera with this film, he last wrote and directed Avatar (2009), so the 13 years before the sequel picks up. He was on the story group for Terminator: Dark Fate (2019). There is a writer’s room for the story including James Cameron, screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who last worked on, um, Mulan (2020), ack!, and are known for Jurassic World (2015). Also, on the story team is Josh Friedman who was also on the story group for Terminator: Dark Fate, and created the series of Snowpiercer. Plus, Shane Salerno who also wrote Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)? We get a watery vision and then see mountains. Then, a pan through the forests of Pandora. The narration is by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) to bring us up to date. He was also in the tv mini-series, Under the Banner of Heaven (2022). Worthington fits right back into his character, soldier turned to revolutionary, and now father. It is set about 14 years after the events of the first film.
We see his love interest, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), very pregnant, draw her bow. Saldana also stars in Amsterdam and also The Adam Project this year. She is of course a Na’vi, 9’ blue humanoids, with prehensile tails that end in feathery tendrils that connect with others and riding animals, and four fingers. He tells of his family; his oldest son, Neteyam, and his other son, Lo’ak, Tuk, his daughter, and Kiri who was “born of Grace’s avatar”, and lastly his human adopted son, called Spider. What doesn’t make sense to me is that Jake has two sons, but none of them are named after his identical twin brother, Tom, which is how he got to Pandora. Spider escapes from the remaining human lab and ends up with Jake’s family. We have to stop here with the avatar. There is too much to explain, the Avatar process and adjustment to new body, supporting characters, and situations for new viewers so they will be lost, Avatar is required viewing, not ideal for a sequel. Neteyam is held up, Lion King-style, by the Na’vi, by the Tsahìk, spiritual leader of the Omatikaya clan, Mo’at (CCH Pounder). Jake and Neytiri see above them “a new star in the night”, the Sky People, from Earth are landing their ships.
The ships have a fiery exhaust that sets fire to the jungles, a massive forest fire that covers the land. The operation is led by RDA from the first movie and we see a landing with the AMP suits which are military versions of the power loader in Aliens (1986). This is the last we see of them. There is a utility suit that is in the theme park expansion, Pandora - The World of Avatar. It is “One Year Later”, we see Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) waken as a Na’vi avatar. He is strikes at the team reviving him and sees a screen with his original form debriefing before the Assault on the Tree of Souls. He says if he was killed it was by Jake Sully. They are known as recombinants, back-ups to their human forms made in Earth labs, with memories from before the battle. Also, there is Lyle Wainfleet (Matt Gerald), reprising his role, and female Recom Zdinarsik (Alicia Vela-Bailey). Then, we have a raid on a Mag-Lev train bringing supplies by Jake, Na’vi warriors, and his sons. Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) is flying ikran, pteradactyl-like with dragon heads, with Neteyam (Jamie Flatters). Dalton had a cameo in Ready Player One (2018). Flatters was Tedros in this year’s The School for Good and Evil.
Lo’ak is too interested in the ground action and lands with his brother. They are surprised by a Scorpion gunship which has dropped off Quaritch’s team. Jake leads the retreat to the Na’vi Insurgency High Camp. Jake is angry at Lo’ak for abandoning his recon duty. At a lab in the Omatikaya Stronghold, we see the two human allies for Jake, scientists; Norm (Joel David Moore) and Max Patel (Dileep Rao). Lo’ak thanks his older brother. Kiri climbs on top of the tank of Dr. Grace Augustine’s avatar body. Grace was injured in the escape from the Hell’s Gate base and the Na’vi tried to transfer Grace to her avatar body. I suspect that Eywa, the living consciousness of Pandora, formed Kiri instead of reviving Grace. Spider (Jack Champion) in the discussion on Jake by his family notes his father! He looks with dreadlocks and loincloth like Disney's Tarzan (1999). Spider wears a exopack to breathe in the toxic atmosphere of Pandora. Quaritch returns to the human base, Bridgehead City, where he sees training General Ardmore (Edie Falco) in a Skel Suit, the new robot suit with thin, robotic arms and legs. Falco starred in 2021 episodes of American Crime Story.
She says that the Earth is dying and their mission is to take care of the indigenous people. No negotiators? I think the Earth would have the technology at this point to terraform planets. A better option than try to occupy a hostile planet. Quaritch’s Blue Team heads to the jungles to find Jake. The jungle is also the play area of Jake’s kids in the middle of a hostile takeover? Kiri falls asleep and the woodsprites, the floating Tree of Souls seeds like dandelion puffs, gather around her. Quaritch approaches the abandoned link unit. Lo’ak has the family observe Quaritch’s team and reports the situation to Jake. He and Neytiri head over to rescue their kids. Quaritch holds up the skull of his original human form in an AMP suit like the Hamlet pose before crushing it. The Na’vi kids are discovered and Quaritch’s team has guns held to them! General Ardmore is called in on a Dragon Assault Ship. Neytiri and Jake manage to free their kids, but Spider whom Quaritch realizes was his former son is taken! Spider is tortured by General Ardmore about the location of Jake. A machine takes images from a scan of Spider’s brain.
Quaritch takes him aside and then has Spider along on his missions. This is a situation like Hook (1991) where Captain Hook tries to convince Peter’s son to join his side. Later, Jake argues that Spider has sensitive information and they have to leave. They head to the Hometree where Jake turns over leadership to a Na’vi warrior, Tarsem (Keston John). The Sully family head off on Ikran across to the sea clans who live on “thousands of islands.” They reach the village of Awa’atlu. There is a glimpse of this world in the Flight of Passage attraction that opened in 2017. Jake asks for sanctuary with the Metkayina Clan, greenish skin color, with webbed forearms and faces like Maori tatoos. Some of the young Metayina members ride in on tsuraks, large aquatic creatures with wings like flying fish and toothed, barracuda-like snouts. They are Tsireya (Bailey Bass), the girl eyes Lo’ak, and also her brother who is suspicious of the hybrid Na’vi, Aonung (Filip Geljo). Bass plays Claudia in the horror series, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Geljo starred in the PBS Kids action show, Odd Squad: The Movie (2016). It looks like the romance is shifted to the young couple. Then, their parents appear, Ronal (Kate Winslet) who is also pregnant. Winslet was in Mare of Easttown and returns to work with Cameron after Titanic (1997). They are accepted into the tribe by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) who respects Jake as Toruk Makto that gathered all of the Na’vi. The actor starred in the real life drama, Muru (2022). The Metayina respect the Tulkun, whale-like animals with six fins and a gaping mouth. The Save the Whales theme was also in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). There are a few plot gaps considering the story tream and scenes like Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) and a little bit of Titanic. Avatar: The Way of Water is entertaining, continues Jake Sully and Neytiri’s story with their family, and explores Pandora’s fantastic underwater world!
Four Skel Suits out of Five!
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