Avatar: The Way of Water, and the Way Back to the Movies

Jim Cameron has actually made his ideal movie to day with Avatar: The Way of Water. It’s a love letter to what he enjoys most: the art of film production, the stamina of family members, the love of moms, and also securing at risk types from termination. There are even worse methods to invest one’s time than 3 hrs submersed in this astounding accomplishment that, honestly, makes me honored to be part of a types that create filmmakers like Cameron that can make motion pictures like that.
Either way, once they kill a movie dead, that’s that. I have found myself leaning more on audience ratings, at least when it comes to whether or not I will want to watch a movie, or pay to see one.
One of the greatest pleasures I’ve experienced this year was watching people on TikTok watch Elvis. It is supposed to unite us under one roof, no matter what, because storytelling is such an essential component to our species.
The experience of seeing this film is hard to explain. It does feel like you’ve escaped into a completely different reality: one you can reach out and touch, with water you can almost smell and faces that look real.
There is nothing like an audience full of movie lovers with a tub of popcorn teetering on their laps, awkward 3-D glasses affixed to their faces, an imagination waiting to be turned on. That is the shared experience for many of us back when we all used to go to the movies.
That would be true about this Avatar were it not for the film’s central driving themes, not just about the strength of family, but also about Cameron’s commitment to preserving the natural world, specifically our wildlife. It’s easy to be cynical about this and other subjects since (most) movies are nothing but activism now, but one of the central plots of this film is the bond between a troubled teenager and an exiled whale.
It’s one of these points that either matters to you or it does not. You might be greatly moved by how that particularly unfolds if it does. I absolutely was.
I haven’t paid to see Avatar: The Way of Water, I will definitely be paying to see it again some time in the near future. That is the kind of movie you pay to see. All of the same complaints about the story are present in the new one, although James Cameron is working with two co-writers this time.
What people always say about Jim Cameron movies is that they can be both the best and worst films ever made in one. Whatever flaws there may be in the script are easily overcome by the experience of watching the film. Movies have much pain and grief to offer audiences.
If you’re a person that is maintained awake in the evening by the suffering of pets, like I am, you will certainly value this movie of what it claims concerning our fellow creatures, the whales. Human beings have actually been talented with superpowers that imply we can torture, put down, as well as eliminate pets that are no suit for our innovation. If we can somehow turn our humanity around and evolve out of that level of barbarism, the only hope we have is.
I am lucky that I don’t have to pay to see movies. I still pay to see movies now because I like seeing them with real audiences who also paid to see them. They almost always lean in, love the movie more, and the experience overall is more enjoyable.
I experienced this the first time with Empire of Light coming out of Telluride. Heck, I used to see it that way too until it all became one giant hive mind otherwise known as Film Twitter.
When I fell and was a kid in love with going to the movies, whether the actual movie theater or the drive-in, I was never then given an appointed “council” of critics to tell me what I should think about a movie. A score or a ranking that decides a movie’s worth. Sometimes I find myself loving the moment after I see the movie and dreading the reviews.
99% of everything that has ever been alive has gone extinct. It’s the one thing we know is coming. We might one day have nothing left but the worlds we can invent and then visit in some kind of virtual reality.
Avatar: The Way of Water is not just the most expensive film ever made that will also likely make more money than any film has ever made, but I would argue it’s also the most expensive art movie ever made. It’s to give something back to those out there in the dark.
Avatar: The Way of Water takes us on a wild ride, to be sure, and one that requires we hold on tight for the length of its over three-hour runtime. It’s the way of modern life. The way of movies now, and maybe the only way.
Avatar: The Way of Water is a masterpiece. No one else could make a film quite like this and Cameron certainly never has, until now.