Avatar: The Way of Water is here, and we operating in the back section of the paper are particularly floored.
Seasoned director James Cameron has deep-dove back into film waters surely to produce a spectacle in every sense of the word. He has managed to complete his presumptive latest in a collection of box-office smashes despite the unfounded wrath of the Internet’s cynical sector— keyboard warriors keen on poo-pooing another key submission from a reputable life’s work.
After helming immensely popular fare like The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) and True Lies, the filmmaker transformed his oceanographer side hustle into arguably his primary gig. A perfectionist, Cameron has only delivered Titanic (1997) and Avatar over the past 25 years. Each was an Oscar darling that profoundly moved the special effect tides within the industry, in terms of both production value and audience experience.
Now, after many delays, and with three more sequels ready to fire off as the decade unfolds, it doesn’t appear like Cameron and Avatar will disperse from the zeitgeist anytime soon. Cameron has turned on the blinders when it comes to ignoring the same Star Wars fanboys who turned on the prequels before retroactively embracing them when they earned continuations, and who contend Avatar, unlike their precious, is devoid of iconography and downright unmemorable.
However, anyone who theatrically caught the original knows its follow-up, regardless of its 3-hr., 12-min. runtime, is a must-see at the cinema– and that one can easily forget their favorite line when visuals are enchanting enough to demand the 3D glasses and IMAX combo.
The first film became the highest grossing film of all time at just shy of $3 billion on a $237 million budget. The Way of Water, meanwhile, reportedly sports one in the $350-$400 million range— putting it in contention with a pair of Avengers films and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) for most expensive film of all time.
Despite a rash wave of Lucasfilm legacy-weary storytellers avoiding franchise relegation to ensure their fan bases could never be disappointed to the point of irrationality, Cameron enforced his stranglehold on original I.P.-come-to-continuable life. His Avatar films features ordinary beings and extraordinary creatures who don’t need capes nor lightsabers to demolish past recoupment and the cinematic stratosphere.
Dormant was a creatively unleashed Cameron while some of the mocking masses turned to meme-speak to reduce his most-ambitious, and monetarily most-successful work.
But, come this weekend, the average-ashe-is-impressionable moviegoer won’t be fooled again. Cameron has never brought anything but the high heat. In Avatar’s first installment, he took you to another world.
Now, for Avatar 2, he’s taking you under— underwater, and under a spell where true-to-earlier form “popcorn escapism” can exist again, once more with healing. No disrespect to contemporary filmmakers of other 2022 spectacle attempts, but Nope is a far cry from Jaws (and Jordan Peele’s own Get Out), Strange World couldn’t hold Into the Spider-Verse’s backpack, and Black Adam can’t convince us we’re watching anything other than The Rock.
Meanwhile, if anyone has a chance at surpassing the scope that Avatar first showed us was possible, it’s the very brainchild. The once-King of the Film World who dared to swim back up to the surface to declare in Michael Jordanian fashion, “I’m back.”
Knocking a workhorse’s unparalleled passion doesn’t cool their fire— it magnifies it.
Turn out to see the result at your favorite theater starting this weekend, whether it be AMC Stony Brook Loews in Lake Grove, Regal Ronkonkoma, or any running number of Suffolk County hotbeds for big-screen entertainment.
