Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) Review

Time: 192 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully
Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri
Sigourney Weaver as Kiri
Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch
Kate Winslet as Ronal
Cliff Curtis as Tonowari
Director: James Cameron

Jake Sully and Neytiri have formed a family and are doing everything to stay together. However, they must leave their home and explore the regions of Pandora. When an ancient threat resurfaces, Jake must fight a difficult war against the humans.

I have to admit, I was one of the many people who didn’t love the first Avatar upon its release, the visuals and effects were certainly revolutionary, but didn’t have much love for it beyond that. I was also one of the many who were sceptical on the many upcoming sequels, which seemed to be taking forever to come out. However, as it gradually approached the movie’s release, my interest started to increase. After seeing most of the modern blockbusters from the past 5 years, it’ll be refreshing to see one that has this much craft and care put into it. Not only that, but I also rewatched the first Avatar for the first time in a decade and I appreciated it a lot more, even beyond its technical strengths. So I went into The Way of Water open minded and it turned out even better than I was expecting.

As with the first Avatar, the story is simple, but it helps to convey the world and characters, and particularly benefits from James Cameron’s great visual storytelling. The Way of Water felt truly epic, the worldbuilding continues to excel and I was incredibly immersed. Cameron clearly has a passion for this world with the level of detail on display. It distinguishes itself from the first movie, instead of just staying in the same location, it expands on it and explores some new territory. Much of the themes from the first movie return in the sequel, namely anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, but also with more added elements, family being prominent most of all. The movie focusses on the family of Jake Sully and Neytiri and their children; the bond between the family members felt incredibly natural and believable. Despite the scale of the film, it feels very intimate as it focuses on these characters. There is so much heart and sincerity, truly magical with strong heart and soul. The emotion feels authentic and rich, an highlight being the scenes involving the whales. There is real sincerity to this movie, which I think most blockbusters nowadays are sorely lacking in. The middle hour is surprisingly quiet and lacking in conflict, but I enjoyed it for that. Much of it consists of the kids learning about their new setting and learning about the water, and honestly I could watch hours of that. Then the film culminates in a lengthy, but action filled and satisfying third act. The Way of Water is a long movie at over 3 hours in length, you definitely feel this, but in a good way, and I was never bored.  

Whereas the first movie was mainly Jake’s story, The Way of Water is more of an ensemble piece. As a result, some characters are utilised and focused on more than others. Nonetheless, everyone is great. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana return to the roles of Jake Sully and Neytiri. While I thought Worthington worked well enough in the first movie, I thought he notably improved in the sequel, and was genuinely great at conveying where Jake is currently at. Saldana wasn’t used as much in the film, but she is still good and particularly shines in the last hour of the film. The new cast which includes Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet also give solid performances in their parts. However, the biggest surprise was most of all the younger cast, mainly the actors who play Jake and Neytiri’s children, who were great and believable.

Among the cast, there were two standouts to me. Sigourney Weaver plays a teenage Avatar named Kiri and the casting is definitely odd, for the obvious age difference as well as the fact that Weaver’s character Grace in the first film died. However, it makes sense in the film, especially with how Kiri relates to Grace. Her performance is great, and she was one of the most interesting characters in the film. Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch was the main villain in the first Avatar; he wasn’t a very complex character by any means, but he was nonetheless effective for his role, and Lang’s performance was key in making it work. Quaritch died at the end of the first movie, but the film did find a way to get him to return. Mild spoilers (it’s shown early on), but he finds himself in an Avatar body and returns to go after Jake Sully and his family. Lang as always is effortlessly entertaining and scene-chewing, but both the performance and character are even better here. Not only is he more menacing, ruthless and dangerous in Way of the Water, but is more complex and human (ironically). This is a genuine improvement of a character, and I was interested in whatever was happening with his storyline.   

Avatar: The Way of Water is yet another technical achievement from James Cameron. While some could just say that its just good visuals and appealing to the eye, the powerful technology helps to convey the story as well as it does. Unsurprisingly it is a visual marvel, Cameron has revolutionized visuals just like what he did in the first movie. The effects are on a whole other level, realistic looking with plenty of details, and it helps to immerse you in this setting. Some of the most impressive aspects are the water effects, which are fantastic. The action is entertaining, well captured and choreographed, and the third act is particularly a thrill to watch. The score from Simon Franglen is great and is very much in line with James Newton Howard’s score for the first movie.

Avatar: The Way of Water is spectacular, beautiful, and epic yet intimate, with great performances, immersive and rich worldbuilding, a simple but compelling story, and outstanding effects. It’s a technical achievement, a great sequel that builds on the original, and one of the best movies of 2022. There was a lot to take in, so I’d need to see it again to check it I have any problems with it. But for now, I’ll just say that it’s worth watching in cinemas for the visuals and technology alone, even though I found the movie great on the whole. The 13-year wait turned out to be well worth it. James Cameron is clearly invested in this story and characters and I’m on board to watch however many sequels he wants to make. Hopefully it won’t have to take too long for Avatar 3 to come out.

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Hacksaw Ridge (2016) Review

Time: 139 Minutes
Age Rating: Depicts graphic & realistic war scenes.
Cast
Andrew Garfield as Desmond Doss
Vince Vaughn as Sergeant Howell
Sam Worthington as Captain Jack Glover
Luke Bracey as Smitty Ryker
Hugo Weaving as Tom Doss
Ryan Corr as Lieutenant Manville
Teresa Palmer as Dorothy Schutte
Director: Mel Gibson

The true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), the conscientious objector who, at the Battle of Okinawa, won the Medal of Honor for his incredible bravery and regard for his fellow soldiers. We see his upbringing and how this shaped his views, especially his religious view and anti-killing stance. We see Doss’s trials and tribulations after enlisting in the US Army and trying to become a medic. Finally, we see the hell on Earth that was Hacksaw Ridge.

Hacksaw Ridge had sparked my curiosity and I first heard of it when it was gaining Oscar buzz and fortunately I managed to watch it before the 2017 Oscars. Overall it was a pretty good movie with its story, the performances (particularly from Andrew Garfield) and Mel Gibson’s direction. There are some cliché elements and it does get a little too over the top at times in certain aspects, but overall I think it’s a pretty solid movie.

The first act focussed on the protagonist Desmond Doss and him when he’s training to be a soldier and refuses to use a gun. The second half is the event at Hacksaw Ridge. Now at times this film does seem cliché in the way they decided to portray events and characters. For example, Vince Vaughn’s character is pretty much like R. Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket, without a whole lot of development (I know a lot of drill sergeants are like this but here it just comes across as being cartoony). Also the Japanese in this movie are represented as just generic enemy soldiers, nothing much more than that, it doesn’t necessarily make the movie worse but it’s just worth noting. I guess this movie was more about Desmond and his part in the war rather than about both sides on the war so it doesn’t bother me too much. It’s just a little noticeable. I myself am not sure how accurate this movie is to real events, so I can’t comment on that aspect. However aside from my issues with that I’d say that Hacksaw Ridge is pretty good overall. It is a long movie at 139 minutes but consistently it had my attention.

Andrew Garfield is great in his role here, this is one of his best performances. It’s easy to like and care about him, but it’s most importantly easy to understand why he makes the decisions that he does, and Garfield’s acting definitely helped with that. Teresa Palmer plays a nurse who Doss starts a relationship with, they were great together. The supporting cast is also good. Vince Vaughn is good, as I said earlier, his character is pretty one note but Vaughn does act his role well. Sam Worthington, also great in this movie, I think with this and Everest, I can say that Sam Worthington really works best in supporting roles. The supporting performance that steals the show however is Hugo Weaving, as Desmond’s father, it’s a really powerful performance and a stand out performance in a bunch of great performances.

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Mel Gibson is directing this movie and as you can probably guess, Hacksaw Ridge is very violent, I mean of course its because it’s a war movie but also because Mel Gibson is directing. All the battle scenes are viscious and brutal, it does ocassionally feel like it’s a little too violent, like a little too over the top. But overall the direction is great. It does really feel like it’s absolute chaos and really places you in the war. The soundtrack by Rupert Gregson-Williams was great.

Overall, I think Hacksaw Ridge is pretty good. The acting was great, the direction by Gibson was solid and I was invested in this story from start to finish. Not everything is perfect, there is definitely some issues I had in the way Gibson decided to tell the story. But for the most part, this movie does get a lot of things right.

Sabotage (2014) Review

Time: 109 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic Violence, Drug Use, Offesnive Language and Sexual Material.
Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger as John “Breacher” Wharton
Sam Worthington as James “Monster” Murray
Mireille Enos as Lizzy Murray
Olivia Williams as Investigator Caroline Brentwood
Terrence Howard as Julius “Sugar” Edmonds
Joe Manganiello as Joe “Grinder” Phillips
Harold Perrineau as Investigator Darius Jackson
Martin Donovan as Floyd Demel
Max Martini as Tom “Pyro” Roberts
Josh Holloway as Eddie “Neck” Jordan
Director: David Ayer

A DEA special ops unit becomes involved in a large scale bust involving tens of millions of dollars. The bust becomes interesting when the group decides to take 10 million dollars for their own use. Things go sour when the money which was hidden turns out to be missing. The group eventually recovers from an internal investigation with another chance to salvage their reputation. But which organized drug group would forget about 10 million dollars? The bigger mystery is where did that money go?

David Ayer is a filmmaker known for making great movies with his very realistic style. I was initially curious for Sabotage, it’s an action movie directed by David Ayer and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unfortunately Sabotage was a tremendous let down. It does have some decent action and Arnold Schwarzenegger does give a great performance, however the writing was pretty bad and didn’t really give much Ayer to work with.

This film was co-written by Skip Woods who previously wrote Hitman, X-Men Origins Wolverine and A Good Day to Die Hard. I have a feeling that’s the reason for a lot of the flaws in the movie. The plot for Sabotage is quite convoluted and for a large portion it wasn’t moving fast enough and not a lot was happening. Also, according to David Ayer, the film was heavily cut by the studio in favour of having more of an action based film rather than a mystery thriller. The original cut of Sabotage was rumoured to be close to 3 hours. After hearing about that fact, it all makes sense. The only parts of the writing I liked was Arnold’s character and his past. Nearly all of the other characters are completely unlikable and annoying.

Arnold Schwarzenegger actually gives one of the best performances of his career. He plays a much darker character and it shows that he can actually do quite well in dramas if he’s given the right character to work with. This is more than I can say for the other characters. Aside from Arnold, almost everyone else is completely unlikable, Olivia Williams was the only other person in this film that was likable. On top of that, only Arnold’s character is given any history, nothing is given about the rest of the team. So when a lot of these people are being killed off, I didn’t really feel much sympathy because that’s what I’ve been waiting to happen for a while.

I liked the action but sometimes the hand held camera really didn’t work for me. This film, like Ayer’s other work (End of Watch and Fury) tries to have a realistic style. Sometimes in the movie it really does that and sometimes that’s effective. But the gruesome and over the top violence really felt out of place. I understand that violence can be bloody and gory but this was at an unbelievable level. There’s one death where a person is found nailed to the ceiling with blood dripping down. It was the cartel who did that and it’s hard to imagine them killing that person and then taking the time to nail him up there. It felt like a completely different movie and it got ridiculous at times.

Sabotage for the most part is a dragging movie with unlikable characters and a plot that’s impossible to follow. It was Arnold and some of the action scenes that made me give this a slightly higher score than most people would give. Despite Sabotage, I still really excited for David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, especially with the latest trailer out. As for Sabotage, this is David Ayer’s weakest work and it’s disappointing. It’s hard to see how this film with so much talent behind it could’ve ended up like this.

Avatar (2009)

Time: 162 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully
Zoe Saldana as Neytiri
Sigourney Weaver as Grace
Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch
Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon
Director: James Cameron

In the future, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. In exchange for the spinal surgery that will fix his legs, Jake gathers Intel for the cooperating military unit spearheaded by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), while simultaneously attempting to infiltrate the Na’vi people with the use of an “avatar” identity. While Jake begins to bond with the native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), the restless Colonel moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand – and fight back for the fate of Pandora.

Avatar is one of the most successful movies and is loved by many people. Although I do think it is a good movie with excellent cinematography and CGI, I have issues with the script which is often predictable and could’ve been much better. Despite this, it is still an enjoyable movie.

The writing for me is the weakest part of the movie; to clarify it’s not the world of Pandora I’m talking about, that was done okay, it’s the story. The story for me was predictable, even when I was 10 years old watching this in cinemas, most of the time I could see where this story was going, this type of story has been done before. This movie is very similar to Dances with Wolves; you may as well call this movie “Dances with Wolves with blue Indians”. Also another flaw in the writing is the characters, none of the characters really stood out to me and often there are certain characters that are only there to move a plot point along like the general who is quite clichéd. Another thing that should be added is that there were a lot of moments in the middle of the film that I felt wouldn’t make much of a difference if they were taken out. It shows Sam Worthington’s character learning how to become one of the Na’vi but at times it seems just like a montage. Overall the story is functional but still could’ve improved immensely. If you put this story in a place without big special effects, I think people would more likely notice the glaring issues with the script.

The acting was decent enough from most people. Sam Worthington gives a pretty good performance and does what he can with the script, despite his character not being very interesting. Zoe Saldana gives the best performance in the movie and plays probably the character that’s closest to standing out the most. Stephen Lang plays the general as I mentioned above and like I said, his role just seems to just be the clichéd bad guy. No character information is given to him so as a result, his performance didn’t leave an impression on me. Other actors like Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver also do the best of what they have.

The special effects elevated this movie and are probably the only reason I’ll overlook the writing’s flaws, at least a little. This movie really makes you feel like you are in the world of Pandora. The battle scenes are also well filmed and unlike some battle scenes in other Hollywood movies today, you can actually see them from a good distance. The CG and the motion captures of the Na’vi are done excellently.

Avatar isn’t a great movie in my eyes, only when considering the special effects. I heard that there will be sequels to this movie and I have to say I don’t understand why. If you haven’t watched this movie yet, do so. Technically this film is well made with a great look; just don’t expect a great movie.