There’s a joke in Hollywood that when he began working on Rio Lobo, Howard Hawks called up John Wayne for the lead. Without much discussion of the plot, Wayne agreed to it. When Hawks asked if Wayne wanted to see a script, he replied, he had made the movie twice already with Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Only this time, Wayne joked he wanted to play the town drunk.
Avatar: The Way of Water reminds me of that joke. This time, they have Stephen Lang play the recombinant version of his character Col. Miles Quaritch, who died in the first one. I must admit, I groaned a little bit when I saw they were just bringing his character back. Quaritch was a completely one dimension xenophobic jerk and watching him finally die at the end of the first movie was a relief because the bastard deserved it.
Yet, James Cameron who had all this time to come up with some other plot, just said, “Fuck it, let’s just do what works best.” While the first movie could easily be called Dances With Wolves in Space, there was some joy and excitement on seeing the movie as Jake Skully (Sam Worthington) is a parapalegic who finds himself falling in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and realized that he must fight against Quaritch’s quest to be Himmler of Pandora by wiping the Na’vi off the planet. It was also like FernGully: The Last Rainforest.
But Cameron at least constructed a good plot that made it watchable despite the long runtime. You could even forgive Giovanni Ribisi and Michelle Rodriguez doing their similar schtick. And one of the best things you can say about this movie, Rodriguez is MIA and Ribisi’s role is reduced to a cameo. But Quaritch does his same thing with the Resources Development Administration returning 16 years after the events of the first movie to bascially finish what was started in the first one. I mean, didn’t anyone think they wouldn’t do it.
In the mean time, Jake, now reborn as a recombinant, has become chief of the Omatikaya clan and started a family with Neytiri. There’s also Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion) who is the son of Quaritch who was born and raised in the human labs on Pandora. But spends most of his time with Jake and Neytiri. He runs around barechested with a loin cloth and a face mask so he can break. It’s like The Jungle Book in Space. So, you don’t have to be Benoit Blanc to deduce that Quaritch will eventually bond with Spider while he’s trying to kill the Na’vi.
Dialogue and plot has never been one of Cameron’s strong points. He’s a visual director. Even the first Terminator looks far better than a lot of action movies released since then. And what he was able to do with Aliens by showing how the xenomorphs had infilitrated the planet LV-426 making their own is stunning for the mid-1980s. But the man is obsessed with water as much as Adam Sandler was in The Waterboy.
The Oscar-winning Titanic and The Abyss were both set in the ocean. And the plot involves the Na’vi seeking shelter with the Metkayina led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife, Ronal (Kate Winslet) who’s pregnant. Tonowari is worried about the dangers that Jake and his family could bring but can’t turn them away. So most of the footage is underwater as the Metkayina are living on the eastern seaboard of Pandora. Part of the reason the movie took so long was Cameron and his special effects team were focusing on how to do the motion capture underwater. Titanic was reportedly delayed from a summer release in 1997 because Cameron said the rudders on the ship turning the wrong way for a few seconds and had to be redone.
It looks great and the action scenes are awesome for people seeing it on the big screen. Yet the sequel is too long at a dull three hours and 12 minutes with credits. The original theatrical movie was shorter by about half an hour but an extended version was closer to three hours. And when you have characters who aren’t too thought out, it’s hard to keep track of who’s who and what’s going on, especially since the Na’vi continue to hiss more at the bad guys and Earthlings.
Edie Falco made some headlines by saying that she had filmed her scenes in 2018 but had forgotten about the movie. Her role as Gen. Frances Ardmore is basically the same role that Lang played in the first one and her character disappears. And that’s part of the movie’s problem. There’s really no need for her character except to see her in a similar robotic contraption like Quaritch was in the first movie.
Cameron has reportedly planned to do two more sequels scheduled to be released over the next five years. He has defied the critics from people who thought Titanic would be a box office disasater to rival the real-life event. And this movie’s success should silence the naysayers who felt there was no need for an Avatar sequel since most people had moved on. But still you have wonder what is there left to tell that he hasn’t told in the six hours of screen time.
Part of the problems with the first two movies has been Worthington himself who has proven that he wasn’t the next big star everyone (including himself mostly) thought he was going to be. Worthington spent most of the 2010s wandering through less than stellar movies and appearing in supporting roles in bigger movies like Sabotage (where he channeled Fred Durst in his appearance) and Hacksaw Ridge. A running joke around the mid-2010s was that Worthington didn’t become the household name and people just called him, “Jake from Avatar.” But Jake from State Farm could probably do a better role.
On the other hand, Saldana’s star caliber has risen thanks to her performances as Gamora in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Trek movies. I’ve noticed the credits have both their names on the screen at the same time with Worthington’s name a little higher over Saldana’s, even though hers is on the left side of the screen. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen had this same debate on The Towering Inferno with their screen credits. Newman ended up having his name higher on the screen, but it was on the right with McQueen’s on the lower left. But McQueen’s people said he was okay with that because the intended audience reads left to right.
I think Worthington needs Cameron to do as many Avatar sequels as possible. I just hope the Oscar-winning director makes better plots. With the Mission: Impossible, Mad Max and John Wick movies, we’re seeing that film franchises can get better if the right people are working on them.
What do yout think? Please comment.
Zane Says 