Avatar: The Way of Water

***Avatar: The Way of Water*** is a 2022 American epic science fiction film directed and produced by James Cameron. He co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from a story the trio wrote with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. Distributed by 20th Century Studios, it is the sequel to *Avatar* (2009) and the second installment in the *Avatar* film series. Cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dileep Rao, and Matt Gerald reprise their roles from the original film, with Sigourney Weaver returning in an additional role while Kate Winslet joined the cast. It follows a blue-skinned humanoid Na'vi named Jake Sully (Worthington) as he and his family, under renewed human threat, seek refuge with the aquatic Metkayina clan of Pandora, a habitable exomoon on which they live.

Cameron said in 2006 that he would like to make sequels to *Avatar* if it were successful, and he announced the first two sequels in 2010, following the widespread success of the first film, with the first sequel aiming for a 2014 release. However, the addition of two more sequels, for a total of five *Avatar* films, and the necessity to develop new technology to film performance capture scenes underwater, a feat never accomplished before, led to significant delays to allow the crew more time to work on the writing, preproduction, and visual effects. The filming process, which occurred simultaneously with a currently untitled third film, began in Manhattan Beach, California, on August 15, 2017. The filming location moved to Wellington on September 25, 2017, which ended in late September 2020 after three years of shooting. With an estimated budget of $350–460 million, the film is one of the most expensive films ever made.

After repeated delays in the expected release schedule, *Avatar: The Way of Water* premiered in London on December 6, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on December 16, 2022. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the visual effects and technical achievements but criticized the plot and lengthy runtime. It was a major box office success, breaking multiple records, and grossing over $2.320 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2022, the highest-grossing film since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the third-highest-grossing film of all time. Organizations like the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named it as one of the top ten films of 2022. Among its many accolades, the film was nominated for four awards at the 95th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won for Best Visual Effects. Three further sequels are in production, with the next film set to be released in December 2025.

## Plot

Sixteen years after the Na'vi repelled the RDA invasion of Pandora, Jake Sully lives as chief of the Omatikaya clan and raises a family with Neytiri, which includes sons Neteyam and Lo'ak, daughter Tuk, and adopted children Kiri (born from Grace Augustine's inert avatar) and Spider, the Pandora-born human son of the late Colonel Miles Quaritch. To the Na'vi's dismay, the RDA led by their new leader Frances Ardmore returns to colonize Pandora as Earth is dying due to ecocide. Among the new arrivals are Recombinants, Na'vi avatars implanted with the memories of deceased human soldiers. Quaritch's recombinant serves as their leader.

A year later, Jake leads a guerilla campaign against the RDA. During a counterinsurgency mission, Quaritch and his subordinates capture Jake's children. Jake and Neytiri arrive and free them, killing several of Quaritch's soldiers, but Spider remains captured by Quaritch who recognizes him as his son. After the RDA fails to get information from Spider, Quaritch decides to spend time with his son to draw him on his side. In turn, Spider teaches Quaritch about Na'vi culture and language.

Aware of the danger posed by Spider's knowledge of his whereabouts, Jake and his family exile themselves from the Omatikaya and retreat to Pandora's eastern seaboard where the Metkayina clan gives them refuge. There, the family learns the ways of the reef people, Kiri develops a spiritual bond with the sea, and Lo'ak befriends Tsireya, the daughter of chief Tonowari and his wife Ronal.

After defending Kiri against Tonowari's son Aonung, Lo'ak apologizes at Jake's insistence. Aonung and his friends then entice Lo'ak to a trip into a sea predator's territory and leave him stranded. Lo'ak is saved from the predator and befriended by Payakan, a Tulkun—an intelligent and pacifistic whale-like species whom the Metkayina consider their spiritual brethren. Upon his return, Lo'ak wins Aonung's friendship by taking the blame for the trip, but is told that Payakan is an outcast among the Tulkun.

Later, Kiri links to the Metkayina's underwater Spirit Tree and spiritually "meets" her biological mother Grace whose consciousness lives within Pandora. During the link-induced trance, Kiri suffers a seizure and falls unconscious, nearly drowning.

Jake summons Norm Spellman and Max Patel for help using their medical equipment, where they diagnose Kiri with epilepsy and warn that she cannot connect to the Spirit Tree again, as doing so may kill her. Although Ronal saves Kiri, Quaritch tracks Norm and Max's aircraft to the archipelago where the Metkayina live. Bringing Spider with him, Quaritch joins forces with the RDA's marine operations, led by Captain Mick Scoresby, and commandeers a whaling vessel that hunts Tulkuns to extract an anti-aging serum called amrita.

Quaritch's squad raids the archipelago, interrogating the tribes about Jake's location to no avail. Quaritch then orders the whalers to kill Tulkuns near the villages to draw Jake out. Lo'ak mentally links with Payakan and learns that he was cast out because he went against the pacifist ways of his species and attacked the whalers who killed his mother, causing many deaths.

When the Metkayina learn of the Tulkun killings, Lo'ak rushes off to warn Payakan, followed by his siblings and friends. They find Payakan being hunted, and Quaritch captures Lo'ak, Tsireya, and Tuk. Jake, Neytiri, and the Metkayina set out to confront the humans and rescue the kids. Quaritch forces Jake to surrender, but Payakan attacks the whalers, triggering a fight between the Metkayina and the humans. Spider cripples the vessel and Neteyam rescues Lo'ak, Tsireya, and Spider, but is fatally shot by one of Quaritch's men. Devastated, Jake and Neytiri go back to save their remaining children that were recaptured. Jake faces Quaritch, who uses Kiri as a hostage. When Neytiri does the same with Spider, Quaritch at first denies their relationship, but desists once Neytiri cuts Spider across the chest.

Jake, Quaritch, Neytiri, and Tuk end up trapped inside the sinking vessel. After a tense skirmish, Jake strangles Quaritch unconscious and is rescued by Lo'ak and Payakan, while Kiri recovers Neytiri and Tuk. Spider rescues Quaritch, but refuses to go with him and rejoins Jake's family, who welcomes him as a true son.

After Neteyam's funeral, Jake informs Tonowari of his decision to leave the Metkayina. Still, the chief respectfully identifies Jake as part of the clan and welcomes him and his family to stay. Before vowing to resume their campaign against the RDA, Jake and his family accept and live their new life at sea.

## Why It's The Way of Water

1. Just Like the First Avatar, Beautiful and Outstanding Cinematography
	* It also good for 2020s Standards, it even looks like the first movie
2. The film is Well-Acted
3. Good CGI just like The First One
4. Neteyam's Death is Emotional and Heartbreakingly well-done.
5. The Action Scenes are Awesomely Done and Kinect
6. Despite the 3 Hours and 12 Minute Run Time, Some scenes can be Fast-Paced
7. There is Some Heartwarming Moments
8. Good Soundtrack by Simon Frangelen, Which it can be Dedicated to James Horner
9. The Film was a Huge Box Office Success with 2.32 Million to were it Saved the Avatar Franchise
10. Awesome and Outstanding Visual Effects
11. Good Direction By James Cameron, Which he Returned for the Sequel

## Bad Qualities

1. For 3 Hours and 12 Minutes, It Can be Slow At Times
2. Some Scenes look like Titanic which it can possibly look Like a Rip-Off
3. The Controversy For the Cultural Appropriation and Representation

## Reception

### Box Office

*Avatar: The Way of Water* grossed $684.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $1.636 billion in other territories, for a worldwide total of $2.320 billion. It had a worldwide opening of $441.7 million, the 11th-biggest of all time, and the third largest in the COVID-19 pandemic era, behind *Spider-Man: No Way Home* ($601 million) and *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness* ($452.4 million). IMAX accounted for $48.8 million, the second-highest global weekend ever for a film released in IMAX cinemas. It is the highest-grossing film of 2022, the third-highest-grossing film of all time, and the highest-grossing film of the pandemic era.

It is the fourth film to reach the $1 billion milestone in the pandemic era after *Spider-Man: No Way Home*, *Top Gun: Maverick* and *Jurassic World Dominion*, as well as the sixth-fastest overall to reach the milestone at 14 days. It crossed the $2 billion milestone on January 22, becoming the first film in pandemic era and the sixth in history to reach the milestone. It is also the second-fastest to gross over $2 billion, reaching the milestone in 40 days. *Deadline Hollywood* calculated the film's net profit as $531.7 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it first on their list of 2022's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".

#### United States and Canada

By December 14, 2022, prior to the film's release in the United States and Canada, *Boxoffice Pro* projected an opening weekend of $145–179 million, and a total final gross of $574–803 million. The film made $53.2 million on its first day, including $17 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to a $134.1 million weekend, nearly double the original's opening of $77 million, but coming in below expectations while finishing first at the box office. *Deadline Hollywood* and *Variety* wrote that strong audience exit scores, the small day-to-day drop, limited competition from other films, and the upcoming Christmas holiday all indicated likely strong legs at the box office.

The film made $63.3 million in its second weekend, a drop of 53%, and $95.6 million over the four-day Christmas weekend, remaining atop the box office. Box office analysts partially attributed the December 2022 North American winter storm for the drop. In the third weekend it grossed $67.4 million for an increase of 6%, and also grossed $88.8 million through the four-day New Year weekend, while becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2022 in the region. It remained the highest-grossing film at the box office throughout its first seven weekends of release, the highest number of consecutive weekends for any film since the original *Avatar*. It is also the seventh-highest grossing film of all time in the US and Canada.

#### China

On the release day of *Avatar: The Way of Water*, Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Culture Media estimated that the film would make $357 million (¥2.5 billion) and $100 million in its opening weekend. It grossed $57 million in the first week in China, according to Artisan Gateway. This included a gross of $51.3 million during the weekend. The box-office gross of the film was impacted by the recent surge in COVID-19 infections in the country. IMAX meanwhile reported that the film marked its best weekend ever in China, with a $15.8 million opening. In the second weekend, the film grossed $25.9 million, for a drop of 55%, and an increase of 42% during the New Year weekend with $36.9 million. *Variety* predicted that it would continue to dominate the region due to lack of titles offering it competition.

#### Other territories

Outside the US and Canada, the film grossed $307.6 million in 52 countries in its first week of release. The largest openings for the film by the end of the week were in China ($56.8 million), South Korea ($24.9 million), France ($21.7 million), Germany ($19.4 million) and India ($19.2 million). In the second weekend it grossed $168.6 million for a drop of 42%. In the third weekend it grossed $186.7 million, an increase of 6% from the previous weekend. In the fourth weekend it grossed $132.6 million for a drop of 30%, while becoming the highest-grossing film of the pandemic era outside the US and Canada. The five largest-running total countries by February 26, 2023, are China ($249.8 million), France ($148.3 million), Germany ($138.3 million), South Korea ($105 million), and the United Kingdom ($91 million). It became the highest-grossing film of all time in twenty box office territories, including Germany, France, Austria, Turkey and New Zealand.

### Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 76% of 436 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Narratively, it might be fairly standard stuff—but visually speaking, *Avatar: The Way of Water* is a stunningly immersive experience." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 68 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, the same as the first *Avatar*, while PostTrak reported 91% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with 82% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Positive reviews focused on the visual spectacle of the film, and advocated seeing it in as large a format as possible. *Chicago-Sun Times* critic Richard Roeper gave the film a rating of three and a half out of four stars, highlighting the film's visuals as "some of the most dazzling, vibrant, and gorgeous images ever seen on screen." *Variety* critic Owen Gleiberman praised the film as a "dizzyingly spectacular sequel" with "miraculously sustained" combat sequences, "scenes that will make your eyes pop, your head spin and your soul race" and "state-of-the-art 3D (never in-your-face, just images that look and feel sculpted) [that] makes the film's every underwater glide feel as experiential as one that you're literally on." On the other hand, Gleiberman felt that the story is "basic" with a "string of serviceable clichés," "bare-bones dialogue" and little dimensionality to the characters. *The Atlantic* critic David Sims said that the film will wow audiences and exhibit "new delights...in the alien world of Pandora" while noting that the film gets off to a slow start that is "busy with plot details as the film updates the audience on the past decade-plus of Pandoran life." Science writer Darren Naish praised the creature design and detailed alien world, saying the series would remain a "mainstay of discussions in creature design and speculative biology for some time yet".

*Los Angeles Times* critic Justin Chang hailed Cameron as "one of the few Hollywood visionaries who actually merits that much-abused term" and said the film will "stun most of his naysayers into silence", while also praising the film's tenderness and sentimentality. *Entertainment Weekly* critic Leah Greenblatt summarized her review of *The Way of Water* saying that it "created its own whole-cloth reality, a meticulous world-building as astonishing and enveloping as anything we've ever seen on screen — until that crown is passed, inevitably, in December 2024, the projected release date for *Avatar 3*."

However, some critics felt that the film was excessively long, and that the story was not substantial enough to justify the length. *The New Yorker* critic Anthony Lane opined "The film is more than three hours long, some of it dangerously close to dawdling; not until the final third does Cameron apply the whip and remind us that, in the choreographing of action sequences, he remains unsurpassed." *The Guardian* critic Peter Bradshaw was critical of the "scathingly bland plot" and noted that despite the shift in setting, "there isn't a single interesting visual image".

*San Francisco Chronicle* reviewer Mick LaSalle called it "a one-hour story rattling around in a 192-minute bag," while acknowledging that "it looks pretty good," incorporating "one of the best uses of 3-D to date, with visuals that seem to have been conceived in three dimensions." *The Telegraph* critic Robbie Collin said that the film "has no plot, no stakes and atrocious dialogue" and that "for all its world-building sprawl, *The Way of Water* is a horizon-narrowing experience – the sad sight of a great filmmaker reversing up a creative cul-de-sac."

The *Toronto Star* commented that the film was poorly received by some indigenous peoples in Canada, being viewed as trying to portray the colonial struggles of an indigenous population, with reviewer Drew Hayden Taylor noting "It's also rather conventional in its own way and somewhat boring. Predictable. I've been involved in crooked card games with a less foreseeable storyline."

### Accolades

Main article: List of accolades received by Avatar: The Way of Water

At the 95th Academy Awards, *Avatar: The Way of Water* received nominations for Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Production Design; and won Best Visual Effects. The film's other nominations include two Annie Awards (winning both), two British Academy Film Awards (winning one), five Critics' Choice Movie Awards (winning one), and two Golden Globe Awards. It was named one of the ten best films of 2022 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.