Avatar: The Way of Water  ★★★★

ON TECHNICAL achievement alone, Avatar: The Way of Water is amongst the best films of 2022.

I have never been a fan of 3D and it’s difficult to determine how much of performance capture is the acting and how much the special effects.

But I couldn’t take my eyes off James Cameron’s latest film for the over three-hour running time. In 3D and with the accelerated frame rate the film truly looks like nothing you have seen before.

Cameron’s team spent years trying to perfect the art of filming performance capture underwater and the principal cast had to learn how to hold their breath for minutes at a time.

On top of this achievement, the visual effects photography is amazing; not just the underwater environment but also the depiction of characters and action on the water and against the terrestrial environment and skyline.

There are some beautiful scenes that have you thinking how on earth was that done. One that comes immediately to mind is a character standing in the water and throwing out a fishing net, the act depicted against the backdrop of a breaking dawn.

Cameron loves his action and the final hour or so features an exciting hunt by commercial fishers of a whale-like creature that transcends into a full-blown battle between the forces of military technology and colonisation and indigenous pride and resourcefulness.

The film is naturally divided into three hour-long acts – in the Pandoran forest where the original film’s hero and former marine Jake Sully and his Na’vi partner Neytiri have raised a family but are forced to flee; with the Metkayina reef people on Pandora’s eastern seaboard where the Sully family make a new home; and on the water where the Metkayina and the Sullys make their stand against marines led by the original protagonist,  Colonel Miles Quaritch.

How the Quaritch character and another original, Dr Grace Augustine, fit into the sequel’s story I will leave you to discover. Like most films, there are good and lesser aspects of the script which was written and re-written and re-written by Cameron and a team of writers over many years.

Writing by committee over a long period is never the best environment for creating a script and that’s certainly the case here. There are parts that stretch credibility and believability and some that are confusing or too simplistic in approach.

But Cameron’s worthy, over-riding theme of man’s wanton destruction of the planet and each other is plain for all to see. Thankfully it is also balanced with more depiction of family love and loyalty in the face of adversity that just manages to make you feel for the characters.

As mentioned, it’s hard to determine the worth of an acting performance amidst such technological rendering and interference, but it certainly doesn’t detract from your eventual identification with the characters.

Avatar: The Way of Water apparently needs to be in the top 10 grossing films in history just to break even. I have no doubt it will get there and Cameron will release Avatar 3 which was filmed simultaneously.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t take another 13 years.