Its Blue (Da Ba Dee)

The Way of Water begins 14 years after the events of Avatar, long enough for Jake Sully and Neytiri to be raising a family and for the humans to have made the journey back to Earth and returned in force. In the real world nearly the same amount of time has passed, long enough for James Cameron to have done a bunch of deep sea exploring and come up with a whole host of new filming technology and techniques.

Does this technical advancement make the film a must see? Yes. Sort of. Maybe. At its best, Way of Water is blockbuster filmaking of the highest level with visual effects and attention to detail that put the CGI in other films to shame. The underwater scenes on something like Wakanda Forever are down right laughable compared to what you see here. It also manages to shake the full on cartoon feel of its predecessor and you can almost believe you are watching a real alien landscape.

Story wise you get very earnest filmaking with a hugely on the nose environmental message, blunt commentary on colonistion and the abuse of indigenous peoples and plenty of sentimentality. This isn't a problem itself but it does sow the seeds of some of Way of Water's biggest flaws. Like the first film the humans are comically evil. There is an attempt to add some nuance to their goals with a line referencing a dying Earth but they are soon back to bullying and butchering the local fauna for profit. The Sully family clan are also a bit one dimensional. The children consist of the dutiful son, the rebellious one and an adopted daughter born of Sigourney Weaver's avatar whose father is unknown (tiresome Jesus allegory incoming) with Jake the loving but overbearing father. Zoe Saldana's Netiri is sidelined to pretty unforgivable degree, in a film with focus on family she spends most of her time commitmenting on Jake's parenting rather than doing any herself and as the family attempt to fit in with the water tribe Na'vi we see none of her journey. Maybe the aim is to give her and a practically unused Kate Winslet more to do in the upcoming sequels.

The best character, once again, is Colonel Quaritch. Killed off in the first film he returns in Avatar form with Stephen Lang managing to keep the same anger and menace despise the transition to CG. He is involved in the best scenes and the showdown involving his blued up marine team, a whaling ship, a bunch of Na'vi and some pissed off sea creatures is oustanding.

Indeed most of action set pieces are spectacular, its the stuff in between that drags and at over three hours it can be a bit of a chore to sit through the less riveting sections. Cameron's aim is obviously immersion rather than narrative efficiency but its hard to believe the movie wouldn't have benifeted from shaving 30-40 minutes off. Overall enjoyment of Way of Water really depends on your willingness to forgive some shortcomings (or longcomings) and let yourself be transported to stunning, if overly blue, alien world.

7 "get the f**k out my offices out of 10 execs trying to tell James Cameron the film is too long.

Comments

Sick Burn

The Evil Dead is horror's most consistent brand, with six films spanning over forty years and not a dud in sight. With Evil Dead Burn, French director Sébastien Vanicek keeps the streak alive, even if he doesn't quite manage to nail the unique feel of earlier entries. Souheila Yacoub plays Alice, whose husband dies in a Deadite (person possessed by a demon) induced car crash. A very tense post funeral get together with her in-laws goes from grim to apocalyptic when the dead arrive looking for a dagger that is capable of sending them back to hell. This is a slight change-up to the usual Evil Dead formula. Normally some fool reads from the Book of the Dead and the Deadites show up to torment and kill people with gleeful abandon. What distinguishes the undead nasties from those in other films is the fun they take in the mayhem. They are neither mindless monsters nor serious soldiers of Satan. They are just here for the love of the game. This somewhat softens the gore and allows ...

The Old Man vs The Sea

The Odyssey represents something of an epic journey for director Christopher Nolan himself. Back in 2004 he came close to directing sword and sandals epic Troy before eventually being passed over in favour of the then far more renowned Wolfgang Petersen. Now, an entire Odysseus away from Ithaca length of time later, he brings us his uniquely Nolan take on the next part of Homer's epic works. It's worth the wait as he crams everything he has learned and refined over the last twenty-odd years into his most ambitious project yet. Spoiler for a 3,000 year old poem but the combined Greek army win the Trojan war after a decade long siege thanks to Odysseus (Matt Damon) tricking the Trojans with the famous wooden horse. A series of catastrophes befall him and his crew on the way back to his kingdom of Ithaca, meaning the journey takes him another ten years. Meanwhile his queen, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Thelemachus (Tom Holland) have to deal with an army of suitors, led by ...

Rushed Girl

Supergirl is the second film in Warner Bros' relaunched DCU. After the previous iteration fizzled out like a damp firework James Gunn was brought in to oversee a new dawn that promised to focus on quality over quantity and compelling scripts over corporate deadlines. Unfortunately, two films and less than a year in and we already have a movie that has clearly been made to fit a schedule rather than because anyone had a great idea for the character. Milly Alcock plays the titular Kryptonian, or Kara to her friends (not that she has any). Still mourning the loss of her home and family, and disillusioned with life on Earth, she is celebrating her birthday alone on a planet with a red sun. The lack of yellow sunlight hampers her superpowers meaning she can get drunk, but it also means she unable to stop her beloved dog Krypto from being poisoned when bad guy Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) turns up to steal her ship. With three days to get the antidote she embarks on a mission to hunt do...

It Sure Does

Love Hurts is Ke Huy Quan's first ever lead role. After decades out the game and struggling to keep his insurance prior to his Oscar winning turn in "Everything Everywhere, All At Once", you can hardly blame him for taking the chance to front a movie. Unfortunately, in Jonathan Eusabio's directorial debut, he has landed in a misfire. Quan plays Marvin Gable, a cheery real estate agent living his best life as he crushes the sales game and keeps everyone in the office (except for his depressed assistant) happy with his home baking. Unbeknownst to his colleagues he used to be a gangland hitman for his mob boss brother "Knuckles" and when the mysterious Rose, who Marvin was supposed to have killed, remerges, big brother dispatches the goons to get some answers from him. Cue high jinks as Marvin battles henchmen kung fu style while trying to keep his current and past lives from colliding. It's a fun idea but nothing quite comes together in the execution. Th...

The Grey Advert

This Russo's action flick has all the ingredients of a top tier spy thriller but will leave you feeling like you've just watched an extended trailer for other films they want to make in the world of the "Grey Man". Ryan Gosling plays Sierra 6 (yes the Sierras are basically 00 agents with the twist they all used to be criminals) and is ideal casting as the sort of ass kicking man of few words this type of film is built around. All the archetypes you would expect are also present and played well by a stellar cast. Chris Evans is unhinged antagonist, Billy Bob Thornton is retired mentor, Rege-Jean Page is crooked politicain and Ana De Armas is the good agent caught in the middle. The plot is just as cookie cutter, involving Gossling being hunted by the people he used to work, computer files nobody was meant to see and hostages needing rescued. Of course, all these things are tropes for a reason and done well (like they are here) equal an enjoyable movie. And the Gre...

Van Afterlife

Passenger director Andrè Øverdal has some impressive credits under his belt, including his Norwegian language breakout hit Trollhunter and chilling haunted corpse movie The Autopsy of Jane Doe. That explains why this mediocre horror has a couple of well crafted set-piece scares, but he is saddled with a bland script that is content to tick familiar genre boxes. Things start promisingly with the titular "Passenger" (a highway stalking demonic entity) dispatching a pair of nighttime travellers. We are then introduced to young couple Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) who are about to abandon the city for a life on the road in their swanky van. Tyler is all in (to an obnoxious degree) but Maddie is hiding some reservations and things get spooky when they are marked by the walking metaphor for the dangers of travel. The first issue the movie runs into is the confusing nature of the entity itself. Why does it mess around with our leads for days when it kills everyone ...

Star Scuffle

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is perhaps the purest distillation of a problem the franchise has had ever since the end of the original trilogy. The inability to expand the scope of its story. Commercially, it became a world devouring behemoth, but in terms of narrative it has never moved past (on the big screen anyway) those first films. George Lucas delivered a prequel trilogy that showed us how we got to his 1977 original. Disney's new trio of movies ended up amounting to little more than bringing the gang back and adding some new faces to the hamster wheel. They also gave us a couple of spin-off films dedicated to filling in unimportant details of the classic adventures. Eventually, a sprawling galaxy far, far away starts to look pretty small. Now their return to cinemas after a (much needed) seven year break is a lengthened episode of a TV show that exists because one of the characters in the original films looked pretty cool. With a laboured structure (there are three...

Killing in the Name of

Mortal Kombat II is, unsurprisingly, a sequel to 2021's Mortal Kombat and the latest attempt to adapt the long running fighting game franchise for the big screen. There has been a bit of a shift in Hollywood over the five years since the last instalment and this film has a very different attitude. Gone is the attempt to "serious-up" the material as MKII fully embraces its dumb video game roots. It still isn't exactly good, but at least this time round it's bad in an enjoyable way. For those unfamiliar with the games, they are based around a fighting tournament that decides if an evil empire from another dimension, or "realm", gets to take over Earth. Think "Enter the Dragon" with superpowers and a hefty dose of inspiration from "Big Trouble in Little China". In terms of this movie, eight people from Earth take turns fighting eight people from "Outworld". Sounds simple enough but the script makes no attempt to create any s...

Talking 'Bout My Girl

In addition to already being the name of a dozen or so movies, Obsession is a horrendously dull film title. It conjures up images of dated romantic thrillers or bargain basement serial killer flicks. This is a long-winded way of saying this darkly humorous relationship nightmare deserves a better name, as it's anything but stale. Barron "Bear" Bailey (Michael Johnston), Nikki (Inde Navarrette), Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) are longtime friends and work colleagues. Bear has long harboured feelings for Nikki and is determined to confess his love, despite warnings from Ian to bide his time and the fact Sarah might be the one who is actually interested in a romantic relationship. After chickening out of an ideal opportunity to tell Nikki how he feels he uses a cheap novelty collectible called a "One Wish Willow" to wish his crush was hopelessly in love with him. Turns out the tacky toy is legit and ties him into a "The Substance" styl...

Tune In, Cop Out

Tuner lead character Nikki (Leo Woodall) hasn't had much luck. His parents aren't around and H yperacusis (an extreme sensitivity to noise) put an end to his piano playing days. Now he puts his enhanced sense to use as a piano tuner, working for mentor and father figure Harry (Dustin Hoffman). When Harry falls ill and into debt, Nikki takes on a sideline in safe cracking for shady security boss Uri (Lori Raz). All is well at first, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly hard for Nikki to juggle his day job, lucrative but dangerous side hustle and a blossoming romance with musical student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu). The set up may make you think you are in for a slick crime caper, but that's not really what this film is. Director Daniel Roher made his name in documentaries and Tuner has a very naturalistic feel. The city is vibrant and busy while close up shots show the intricacy of the pianos and locks Nikki has mastery over. We are following characters (mainly Nikki)...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog