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Avatar: The Way of Water

James Cameron wants you to believe. He wants you to believe that aliens are killing machines, humanity can defeat time-traveling cyborgs, and a film can transport you to a significant historical disaster. In many ways, the planet of Pandora in “ Avatar ” has become his most ambitious manner of sharing this belief in the power of cinema. Can you leave everything in your life behind and experience a film in a way that’s become increasingly difficult in an era of so much distraction? As technology has advanced, Cameron has pushed the limits of his power of belief even further, playing with 3D, High Frame Rate, and other toys that weren’t available when he started his career. But one of the many things that is so fascinating about “Avatar: The Way of Water” is how that belief manifests itself in themes he’s explored so often before. This wildly entertaining film isn’t a retread of “Avatar,” but a film in which fans can pick out thematic and even visual elements of “ Titanic ,” “ Aliens ,” “The Abyss,” and “The Terminator” films. It’s as if Cameron has moved to Pandora forever and brought everything he cares about. (He’s also clearly never leaving.) Cameron invites viewers into this fully realized world with so many striking images and phenomenally rendered action scenes that everything else fades away.

Maybe not right away. “Avatar: The Way of Water” struggles to find its footing at first, throwing viewers back into the world of Pandora in a narratively clunky way. One can tell that Cameron really cares most about the world-building mid-section of this film, which is one of his greatest accomplishments, so he rushes through some of the set-ups to get to the good stuff. Before then, we catch up with Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ), a human who is now a full-time Na’vi and partners with Neytiri ( Zoe Saldana ), with whom he has started a family. They have two sons—Neteyam ( Jamie Flatters ) and Lo’ak ( Britain Dalton )—and a daughter named Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and they are guardians of Kiri ( Sigourney Weaver ), the offspring of Weaver’s character from the first film.

Family bliss is fractured when the ‘sky people’ return, including an avatar Na’vi version of one Colonel Miles Quaritch ( Stephen Lang ), who has come to finish what he started, including vengeance on Jake for the death of his human form. He comes back with a group of former-human-now-Na’vi soldiers who are the film’s main antagonists, but not the only ones. “Avatar: The Way of Water” once again casts the military, planet-destroying humans of this universe as its truest villains, but the villains’ motives are sometimes a bit hazy. Around halfway through, I realized it’s not very clear why Quaritch is so intent on hunting Jake and his family, other than the plot needs it, and Lang is good at playing mad.

The bulk of “Avatar: The Way of Water” hinges on the same question Sarah Connor asks in the “Terminator” movies—fight or flight for family? Do you run and hide from the powerful enemy to try and stay safe or turn and fight the oppressive evil? At first, Jake takes the former option, leading them to another part of Pandora, where the film opens up via one of Cameron’s longtime obsessions: H2O. The aerial acrobatics of the first film are supplanted by underwater ones in a region run by Tonowari ( Cliff Curtis ), the leader of a clan called the Metkayina. Himself a family man—his wife is played by Kate Winslet —Tonowari is worried about the danger the new Na’vi visitors could bring but can’t turn them away. Again, Cameron plays with moral questions about responsibility in the face of a powerful evil, something that recurs in a group of commercial poachers from Earth. They dare to hunt sacred water animals in stunning sequences during which you have to remind yourself that none of what you’re watching is real.

The film’s midsection shifts its focus away from Sully/Quaritch to the region’s children as Jake’s boys learn the ways of the water clan. Finally, the world of “Avatar” feels like it’s expanding in ways the first film didn’t. Whereas that film was more focused on a single story, Cameron ties together multiple ones here in a far more ambitious and ultimately rewarding fashion. While some of the ideas and plot developments—like the connection of Kiri to Pandora or the arc of a new character named Spider ( Jack Champion )—are mostly table-setting for future films, the entire project is made richer by creating a larger canvas for its storytelling. While one could argue that there needs to be a stronger protagonist/antagonist line through a film that discards both Jake & Quaritch for long periods, I would counter that those terms are intentionally vague here. The protagonist is the entire family and even the planet on which they live, and the antagonist is everything trying to destroy the natural world and the beings that are so connected to it.

Viewers should be warned that Cameron’s ear for dialogue hasn’t improved—there are a few lines that will earn unintentional laughter—but there’s almost something charming about his approach to character, one that weds old-fashioned storytelling to breakthrough technology. Massive blockbusters often clutter their worlds with unnecessary mythologies or backstories, whereas Cameron does just enough to ensure this impossible world stays relatable. His deeper themes of environmentalism and colonization could be understandably too shallow for some viewers—and the way he co-opts elements of Indigenous culture could be considered problematic—and I wouldn’t argue against that. But if a family uses this as a starting point for conversations about those themes then it’s more of a net positive than most blockbusters that provide no food for thought. 

There has been so much conversation about the cultural impact of “Avatar” recently, as superheroes dominated the last decade of pop culture in a way that allowed people to forget the Na’vi. Watching “Avatar: The Way of Water,” I was reminded of how impersonal the Hollywood machine has become over the last few decades and how often the blockbusters that truly make an impact on the form have displayed the personal touch of their creator. Think of how the biggest and best films of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg couldn’t have been made by anyone else. “Avatar: The Way of Water” is a James Cameron blockbuster, through and through. And I still believe in him.

Available only in theaters on December 16th. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• 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
• Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman
• CCH Pounder as Mo'at
• Edie Falco as General Frances Ardmore
• Brendan Cowell as Mick Scoresby
• Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ian Garvin
• Jamie Flatters as Neteyam
• Britain Dalton as Lo'ak
• Trinity Bliss as Tuktirey
• Jack Champion as Javier 'Spider' Socorro
• Bailey Bass as Tsireya
• Filip Geljo as Aonung
• Duane Evans Jr. as Rotxo
• Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge
• Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel

Writer (story by)

• Amanda Silver
• James Cameron
• Josh Friedman
• Shane Salerno
• David Brenner
• John Refoua
• Stephen E. Rivkin

Cinematographer

• Russell Carpenter
• Simon Franglen

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'Avatar: The Way of Water' Is Breathtaking and Clunky All at the Same Time

Review: James Cameron's Avatar 2, in theaters now, is a gorgeous sci-fi blockbuster and an even better nature documentary.

Avatar: The Way of Water takes us back to Pandora.

"The way of water has no beginning," explains a doe-eyed blue alien, "and no end." 

Given that the Avatar franchise began 13 years ago and has three more sequels in the works, that's the truth. Not to mention that the new movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, clocks in at a near-endless 3 hours and 12 minutes, which sure is a long time to wear 3D glasses.

But director James Cameron's  epic sequel, in theaters now, has a lot to pack in: It's a decent sci-fi blockbuster, a visual effects master class and the best nature documentary you'll ever see.

Before Avatar 2 you can refresh your memory of the original 2009 Avatar on Disney Plus (or just catch up with our handy guide ). The first movie showed former marine Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ) arriving on the lush green planet of Pandora to be plugged into a giant blue alien body (or avatar) that could walk among the giant blue aliens who live there. Instead of helping his human comrades strip-mine Pandora, however, he falls for the Na'vi and their oneness with the planet's beautiful but bitey plants and animals. Specifically, he falls in love with tribal princess Neytiri ( Zoe Saldana ). Fast-forward to the sequel, and the now married couple lead guerrilla raids against the greedy human capitalists, while raising a family of young Na'vi children and teenagers.

The new film unfolds from the viewpoint of these kids, each of whom struggles with their part-human/part-Na'vi background. When the troubled teens run into some new and distinctly unfriendly avatars, the Sully family jump on their flying lizards and wing their way across the sea to seek shelter with a new tribe of Na'vi who live in harmony with the ocean.

It's on new shores that Avatar soars. Some early scenes of aliens in combat gear scoping out the environment look exactly like a video game, but that feeling disappears as we spend time with families of Na'vi in and around the ocean. These scenes in the sea are just breathtakingly beautiful. In footage that would make  David Attenborough  proud (if you sent him off into space), lithe Na'vi dive in crystal clear water and frolic with coruscating sea creatures, dappled by shafts of sunlight. 

Moments like this look incredible in 3D.

Even a moment as simple as a character dangling their feet in the water is teeming with layers of bioluminescent movement. In probably the most delightful use of 3D I can remember, fish and Na'vi dart out of the screen toward you before dancing away into the depths. You can almost reach out and splash your hand in the sparkling water. It's utterly hypnotic.

As you explore this beguiling underwater realm alongside the Na'vi, these CG characters become completely real and far more fleshed out than the real actors over on the human side of things. As in the first film, there's a divide between human actors in real sets and computer-generated aliens in impossible imagined environments, although it's a lot of fun when they meet in battle and the difference in their sizes means an arrow in the hand of a Na'vi becomes a giant spear impaling a puny human. 

Humans tumble from exploding vehicles like action figures scattered across a sandbox, but the battles are more than empty spectacle because you've come to identify so much with the Na'vi's harmonious existence with the planet's ecosystem as they stand against the humans' brutal, greedy and pointless exploitation.

The biggest interaction between these two worlds is the growing relationship between a grizzled combat vet in a big blue avatar body and a human child raised on Pandora. They're stubborn enemies and yet have something in common, as they're each torn between both human and Na'vi worlds. The combat vet is played by Stephen Lang (the brutal soldier from the first movie) returning in blue CG form, and his villainous character has a far more interesting story than Jake and Neytiri do.

The Avatar sequel introduces sea-dwelling Na'vi.

The focus on the kids means the grown-up characters are left underdeveloped. For Jake and Neytiri, being guerrilla warriors and parents should be a deeply intriguing internal conflict. What if fighting for your children's future means you don't get to see that future – or worse, what if fighting for everybody else's children costs you your own kids? 

You might end up thinking about these questions, but there's hardly any suggestion that either Jake or Neytiri are wrestling with such considerations. They seem to be constantly arguing, but not really about anything. The strain that their crusade places on their marriage and their love is at least as interesting as all the teen hormones flying around. But I couldn't tell you if they hold opposing viewpoints about any of the big questions you'd think they'd be grappling with. 

Neytiri is particularly short-changed. She's a "strong female character" in that she can shoot a bow and arrow while somersaulting through an explosion, which is cool. But it isn't particularly clear what she thinks about anything. It's jarring that Jake, the newcomer to Na'vi society, not only becomes chief of the tribe but -- even when on the run -- continues to speak for her. The first movie was heavily criticized for its "white savior" tropes. And while Way of Water's heart seems to be in the right place, Jake is still continually the one telling the Na'vi how things are.

There are plenty of big fish moments.

The abundance of creativity in so many areas makes it particularly disappointing when the plot insists on wheeling out assorted hoary old cliches. Teen bullies taunting a troubled newcomer. A knife-to-the-throat hostage standoff. These are such clanging cliches that their inclusion must surely be deliberate, like a wink at the audience to reassure us so that we'll go along with the goofier stuff (subtitled whalesong, anyone?). Yes, scenes like this have a certain universal clarity, and younger viewers may be seeing them for the same time. But it seems baffling that such an otherwise imaginative film would recycle such well-worn tropes. 

The first film was basically Dances With Wolves crossed with Cameron's Aliens . This time around, the director throws in more elements from his films The Abyss , Terminator 2 and Titanic . There's even a moment involving a fish and a bigger fish that was kinda cringe when George Lucas did it in The Phantom Menace 23 years ago.

Still, the parental anguish and the engaging journeys of the young characters give The Way of Water emotional heft. The sci-fi action is cathartic and exciting, the environmental message is irresistible, and the visuals are just incredible. 

Even at over three hours -- and again, those 3D glasses can get uncomfortable -- it's hard to think of anything that could be cut. The section that wanders around underwater could probably do with a stern tightening, except it's probably the best part of the whole film. 

3D glasses aside -- once it's begun, you might not want this movie to end. 

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‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Review: James Cameron’s Sequel Is What the Theatrical Experience Was Made for

David ehrlich.

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To paraphrase a woman once known as Rose DeWitt Bukater: “Outwardly, I’ve spent the last 13 years insisting that only a total moron would ever bet against ‘ Avatar ‘ mastermind James Cameron . Inside, I was screaming.”

Screaming at the idea that modern Hollywood’s most all-or-nothing visionary was going to waste the twilight of his career — and possibly the last gasp of The Movies themselves — on a series of sequels to his least compelling work. Screaming at the notion that the only person with the resources and cachet to create massive new film worlds from scratch had decided to semi-permanently entrench himself in one that I’d already seen and wasn’t particularly itching to revisit. Screaming at the far-fetched prospect that he’d be able to mine fresh pockets of either from a planet that he’d previously (and vividly) terraformed into the most basic of settler-adoption space fantasies.

“Aliens,” “Terminator 2,” and even the disavowed “Piranha” sequel prove that Cameron has always had a gift for building radical new sights atop pre-existing bedrock, but I was skeptical that another epic worthy of his ego could be constructed on the bones of such brittle colonization tropes, or that the Na’vi offered him the opportunities he needed to revolutionize movie-going yet again (for better or worse).

On the latter point, of course, Cameron knew that it did. Pandora was conceived as a giant playground for the technology that he wanted to bring to movie theaters — and as the weapon that would force them to go digital or die — and Cameron’s plan for it always extended beyond lithe blue cat people selling the masses on saving the rainforest. His heart belongs to the ocean, after all, and the ones on Pandora are virtually impossible to beat.

Cameron has always treated story as a direct extension of the spectacle required to bring it to life, but the anthropocenic relationship between narrative and technology was a bit uneven in the first “Avatar,” which obscured the old behind the veil of the new where his previous films had better allowed them to intertwine. An out-of-body theatrical experience that makes its predecessor feel like a glorified proof-of-concept, “ Avatar: The Way of Water ” is such a staggering improvement over the original because its spectacle doesn’t have to compensate for its story; in vintage Cameron fashion, the movie’s spectacle is what allows its story to be told so well.

The adventures of Jake Sully (of the Jarhead clan) are probably never going to escape their sub-“Lawrence of Arabia” underpinnings or achieve the kind of popcorn-flavored poignancy that inspired this critic to list “Titanic” as one of the 10 greatest films ever made, but I’ll say this much: When “Avatar” ended, I couldn’t imagine caring about its characters enough to sit through a sequel, let alone four of them. When “The Way of Water” finally ebbed out to sea after 192 spellbinding minutes — receding into darkness with the gentlest of cliffhangers at the end of a third act defined by some of the clearest and most sensationally character-driven action sequences this side of “True Lies” — I found myself genuinely moved by the plight of Jake’s tall blue family, and champing at the bit to see what happened to them next. Never doubted Big Jim for a minute!

Here is a silly movie that works so well because it uses dazzling new tools to satisfy our nostalgia for classic entertainment. Seeing “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 3D VFR at High Dynamic Range doesn’t feel like watching any other movie you’ve seen before. This thing is a categorically and phenomenologically different experience than everything else that’s ever played at your local multiplex, including the original “Avatar” — it’s as many light years removed from the year’s other great blockbusters (“Nope,” “RRR,” and “Top Gun: Maverick”) as the extrasolar moon of Pandora is from Earth.

To some degree, that’s because “The Way of Water” iterates and improves upon technology that’s been tried before. As you would expect from an “Avatar” sequel, the main cast largely consists of 10-foot-tall aliens who mind-meld with nature through the anemone-like tendrils that wiggle out of their braids, only this time the Na’vi look more realistic than most of the human actors you’ll find in other Hollywood fare, especially during the ultra-vivid close-ups that Cameron uses to lend this film an emotional depth that its predecessor lacked the time and technology to achieve.

Like all great sequels, “The Way of Water” retrospectively deepens the original, and while that may not be much of a challenge here, it’s one that Cameron meets all the same. Now that the table-setting is out of the way and paraplegic-marine-turned-alien-clan-leader Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ) has been at home in his new world and body for more than a decade, Cameron is free to move beyond $250 million “Pocahontas” fanfic and get a little freaky with the formula.

Jake and his Na’vi huntress mate Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have produced four recom/Na’vi hybrid children when the sequel begins, which is enough to suggest that all of the “Avatar” series’ latent horniness is probably a bit less latent when Disney audiences aren’t watching. In fairness, the couple’s least annoying child was adopted when the Avatar that Sigourney Weaver ’s Dr. Grace Augustine used during the first movie somehow became pregnant while floating inside its test tube coffin after the scientist’s death.

And while the father’s identity remains something of a mystery, he must have been a pretty cool guy/spirit god because inquisitive teenage Kiri — also played by Weaver in one of the most affecting turns that performance-capture has ever made possible — instantly becomes the series’ best character (the other Sully kids range from “cute” to “under-written middle child” to “oh no it’s basically the idiot son from ‘War of the Worlds’”).

An outcast in a story teeming with them, Kiri depends on a degree of nuance that didn’t seem possible of the Na’vi in the previous film, and the character transcends her “chosen one” mystique with a warmth and curiosity that sets her apart from the rest of the cast, even as her interspecies hybridity and search for belonging find her in good company. She’s the bridge between human and Na’vi, analog and digital, that “Avatar” sorely needed, and her centrality to the next chapter of Cameron’s overarching narrative bodes well for the future of this franchise.

The same can’t quite be said of Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion), a shredded human teenager who was born on Pandora before the events of the first film, and is so determined to be accepted by/as one of the Na’vi that he runs around in his skivvies with stripes of blue painted over his skin. He’s a Newt for a new generation, and his very old school Cameron-ian goofiness wouldn’t be so worrying if not for the fact that Spider is almost immediately revealed to be the late Col. Quaritch’s son.

Well late-ish, anyway, as the cigar-chomping Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is back in Na’vi form. Earth is uninhabitable, people need a new planet, and a tall blue clone of the genocidal colonist from the last movie is in charge of clearing out the hostiles from humanity’s new home. That nü-Quaritch isn’t human himself adds a curious dynamic to his mission — a wrinkle dramatized by a wonderful “Avatar” take on Hamlet’s “Alas poor Yorick” speech — as does the fact that his own child is fighting alongside the natives.

Whether Spider is a strong enough character to carry that kind of story weight remains to be seen, but the intention alone points the plot towards resonant notes of acceptance and belonging; notes that help “The Way of Water” pivot away from the colonialist overtones that its predecessor wasn’t prepared to handle, and instead towards broader questions about man’s destructive instinct for survival at all costs, in perpetuity, throughout the universe. Quaritch’s war against the Na’vi mirrors the one against his own nature, a war that Jake Sully finds worth fighting in the service of protecting the people he loves and the planet that sustains them.

With Quaritch determined to slaughter Jake’s entire clan in order to put his head on a pike, our hero makes the decision to leave the jungle and flee with his family to the distant atolls of Pandora. That’s where they seek refuge with the sea green Metkayina clan and try to adapt to the life aquatic as they wait for the inevitable third act showdown with Quaritch’s military goons (fingers crossed that Kate Winslet gets more to do in the third movie as the Metkayina’s chief matriarch).

It’s during the film’s leisurely middle stretch that Cameron pioneers the use of underwater performance-capture, which is the kind of thing that only sounds like a big tech bro wank until the moment you see it in action. If parts of the story’s first chapter suggest that audiences are in for a simple retread of a sci-fi adventure that everyone on our planet saw twice and pretends to have forgotten, any “been here, actually do remember this” déjà vu washes all the way off the minute the action finally plunges under the surface and submerges us in an oceanic world so clear and present that you might instinctively start holding your breath.

It’s the most rapturous, awe-inducing, only in theaters return to the cinema of attractions since Godard experimented with double exposure 3D in “Goodbye to Language,” whether swimming with schools of alien fish or introducing us to the four-eyed, 300-foot-long whale-like tulkun (who prove central to the plot and communicate in subtitled Papyrus), these scenes have more in common with VR or lucid dreaming than whatever rinky-dink CGI we’re forced to swallow with every new superhero movie, and Cameron lets us soak up every frame. If we can fall in love with this world and be compelled by the fight to save it, why can’t we do the same with our own?

Complicating the illusion in a way that alternately enhances “The Way of Water” and risks interrupting its flow is a variable frame rate that switches between 24 and 48fps from one shot to the next, as if God (or Eywa) were speed-ramping life itself. There are times when the magic of it all fails to transcend the motion-smoothed memories that may continue to haunt my fellow survivors of “Gemini Man” and “The Hobbit,” and it can seem as if the screen has once again been set to soap opera mode.

There are other times — and your mileage on this will itself prove variable — when it can seem as if there isn’t a screen at all, and that the action is unfolding right in front of you. Either way, almost everything you see looks real (avatar-ized Stephen Lang is the only aspect that caused my brain any cognitive dissonance), or at least it all looks equally unreal , which is the same thing as far as your eyes are concerned.

The experience simply isn’t comparable to whatever else is playing at the local AMC, and yet the most impressive thing about “The Way of Water” might be how it captures the age-old spirit of the multiplex so well that it doesn’t even need to star Tom Cruise. This is a Movie with a capital “M,” its $400 million tech and ecological messaging all in service of a tulkun-sized adventure so transportive that I quickly stopped caring how Cameron made it. It’s certainly always obvious that no one else could have or did, as “The Way of Water” finds new charm in many of the director’s most groan-worthy fetishes and cliches: Stiff heroes, mouth-foaming villains, military jerk-offs, the emasculating insults they spew like bullets (“cupcake,” “buttercup,” other tasty morsels like that), scruffy engineers wearing stupid t-shirts, and enough boomer chutzpah to raise the Titanic are all present and accounted for in unapologetic fashion. Edie Falco walking around in a giant exoskeleton? That’s just a free bonus.

Using cutting-edge technology to recreate something that always seems on the brink of being lost forever, “The Way of Water” effectively marries the “what the hell am I eating?” experience of gastronomy with the full-bellied satisfaction of the first Big Mac you’ve had after a brutal fast. Frustratingly — if also most exciting of all — this feast of a movie left me with the feeling that Cameron is still holding back. Massive and monumental as “The Way of Water” is, there’s little doubt that you’re being served the most expensive appetizer of all time.

Be that as it may, this serving is still more than enough to make your mouth water. By the time the film arrives at its harrowing finale (a sublime reminder that “James Cameron + sinking ships” is one of the best combinations the movies have ever come up with), I couldn’t believe how involved I was by this larger than life cartoon epic about characters I was ready to leave for dead 13 years ago.

Does it matter if “The Way of Water” doesn’t elicit the same response when I watch it at home? Not really — I know that it won’t. Does it matter that Cameron is continuing to “save” the movies by rendering them almost unrecognizable from the rest of the medium? His latest sequel would suggest that even the most alien bodies can serve as proper vessels for the spirits we hold sacred. For now, the only thing that matters is that after 13 years of being a punchline, “going back to Pandora” just became the best deal on Earth for the price of a movie ticket.

20th Century Studios will release “Avatar: The Way of Water” in theaters on Friday, December 16.

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Review: An exercise in Na’vi gazing, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ will cure your moviegoing blues

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In “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the director James Cameron pulls you down so deep, and sets you so gently adrift, that at times you don’t feel like you’re watching a movie so much as floating in one. From time to time he brings you to the bottom of an alien sea, shot with stunning hyper-clarity in high-frame-rate 3D and teeming with all manner of surreally strange fish — all oddly shaped fins, decorative tentacles and other vestiges of an otherworldly, faintly screw-loose evolutionary timeline.

You can imagine the fun (and the headaches) that Cameron and his visual-effects wizards must have had designing this brilliant ocean-floor nirvana. You can also see an astronomical budget (reportedly north of $350 million) and an extraordinarily sophisticated digital toolkit at work, plus a flair for camera movement that, likely shaped by the director’s hours of deep-sea diving, achieves an exhilarating sense of buoyancy.

Much as you might long for Cameron to keep us down there — to give us, in effect, the most expensive and elaborate underwater hangout movie ever made — he can’t or won’t sustain all this dreamy Jacques-Cousteau-on-mushrooms wonderment for three-plus hours. He’s James Cameron, after all, and he has a stirringly old-fashioned story to tell, crap dialogue to dispense and, in time, a hell of an action movie to unleash, complete with fiery shipwrecks, deadly arrows and a whale-sized, tortoise-skinned creature known as a Tulkun. All in all, it’s marvelous to have him back (Cameron, that is, though the Tulkun is also welcome). He remains one of the few Hollywood visionaries who actually merits that much-abused term, and as such, he has more on his mind than just pummeling the audience into submission.

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Cameron wants to submerge you in another time and place, to seduce you into a state of pure, unforced astonishment. And he does, after some visual adjustment; the use of high frame rate (a sped-up 48 frames per second) tends to work better underwater than on dry land, where the overly frictionless, motion-smoothed look might put you briefly in mind of a Na’vi soap opera (“The Blue and the Beautiful,” surely). But then he can captivate you with something as lyrically simple — but actually, as painstakingly computer-generated — as a shot of his characters sitting beside the water at night, their faces and bodies reflecting the digital phosphorescence below. Any hack can make stuff blow up real good; Cameron makes stuff glow up real good.

In this long-running, long-gestating sequel to his 2009 juggernaut, “Avatar,” Cameron returns you to that distant moon called Pandora, though most of the action unfolds far from the first movie’s majestic floating mountains and verdant rainforests. We encountered that dazzling, soon-to-be-despoiled Eden through the eyes of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a square-jawed, soft-hearted ex-Marine sent by his ruthless corporate overlords to infiltrate the Na’vi, a powerful race of blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, cat-tailed humanoids who lived in astonishing oneness with all living things. Transplanted into his own genetically tailored Na’vi body, or avatar, Jake didn’t take long to switch allegiances and turn against humanity, having fallen hopelessly in love with Pandora’s beauty and also with a Na’vi warrior princess, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña).

“Avatar” was a thrilling moviegoing experience and a pioneering showpiece for performance-capture technology, which allowed Cameron and his actors to endow their Na’vi characters with astonishingly detailed and lifelike gazes, gestures and physiognomies. The movie was also built on a consciously thin story, with thudding echoes of anti-imperialist westerns like “Dances With Wolves” and the fondly remembered eco-conscious animation “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.” But then, Cameron’s cutting-edge technophilia has always been married to, and complemented by, an unapologetic cornball classicism. And if it was easy to snicker at “Avatar’s” hippy-dippy sincerity, it was also easy to surrender to its multiplex transcendentalism, its world of synthetically crafted natural wonders. Here was the rare studio picture that seemed enlivened, rather than undermined, by its contradictions.

If anything, those contradictions hit you with even greater force in “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which fully and subtly immerses you in the Na’vi world from start to finish. The level of computer-generated artifice on display in every landscape and seascape is cumulatively staggering, in ways to which even the first movie, toggling insistently between Jake’s human and Na’vi experiences, didn’t aspire. Just as crucially, the stakes have risen, the emotions have deepened and the brand-extension imperatives that typically govern sequels are happily nowhere in evidence.

That might seem remarkable, considering that the “Avatar” series (at least three more movies are planned), like all properties of the former Fox Studios, now belongs to Disney, speaking of ruthless corporate overlords. But then, it’s no surprise that the director of “Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” two of the most indelible sequels in action-cinema history, knows a thing or two about intelligent, expansive franchise building. And as “The Abyss” and “Titanic” bore out, Cameron also knows a thing or two about water, which is where this latest sequel finds its sweet spot: Welcome to Pandora’s beach.

But first, there’s a truckload of exposition to get through. As in the first movie, Jake obliges with the kind of grunting film-noir-gumshoe voiceover that reminds you, in ways more endearing than irritating, that snappy exposition will never be one of Cameron’s strong suits. (He co-wrote the script with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.) Several years after shedding his own avatar and being reborn as a full-blown Na’vi, Jake has mastered his post-human way of life. He and Neytiri are parents to four Na’vi children: two teenage sons, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton); an 8-year-old daughter, Tuk (Trinity Bliss), and an adopted teenage daughter of mysterious provenance named Kiri. She’s played by Sigourney Weaver, a casting choice that naturally ties her to Dr. Grace Augustine, Weaver’s deceased scientist from the first movie, initiating a mystery that will presumably be unraveled further down the franchise road.

Weaver’s casting also raises some odd, potentially discourse-sowing questions about Kiri’s chaste (for now) bond with a young human male and fellow foundling named Spider (Jack Champion), who likes to run, bare of chest and foot, with the Sully clan. But if their friendship makes for an optimistic portrait of interspecies harmony, Cameron doesn’t linger on it for long. Instead, he unleashes a grave threat that drives Jake and Neytiri from their Omaticayan jungle home and sends them fleeing to the ocean, where they seek refuge with a civilization of Na’vi reef dwellers known as the Metkayina.

It’s a shrewd narrative gambit that not only refreshes the scenery (and how!) but also forces Jake, Neytiri and their family to adapt to an entirely new way of life, cueing a second-act training regimen that allows Cameron to show off every square inch of his aquatic paradise. (His key collaborators include his longtime cinematographer, Russell Carpenter, and production designers Dylan Cole and Ben Procter.)

Led by the kind, welcoming Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his less hospitable wife, Ronal (a glaring Kate Winslet), the Metkayina are a highly evolved clan of water dwellers, as underscored by their aquamarine skin (in contrast to the Omaticayans’ cerulean tones), seashell-and-fishnet jewelry and intricate tattoos, reminiscent of Maori body art. They also boast unusually thick, long tails built for underwater propulsion. For Jake, Neytiri and especially their children, learning to navigate the watery wilderness just outside their new beach-bum paradise will prove a difficult challenge. It’ll also earn them some mockery from the locals, especially Tonowari and Ronal’s own teenage children, in a story that sometimes plays like a teen surfing movie by way of “Swiss Family Robinson.”

Even coming from a filmmaker used to setting intimate relational sagas against large-scale tragedy, the tenderness and occasional sentimentality with which Cameron invests this drama of family conflict and survival feels unusually personal. It can also feel a bit thinly stretched at three hours, but even that seems more an act of generosity than indulgence on Cameron’s part; his attachment to this family is real and in time, so is yours. Audiences expecting propulsive non-stop action, rather than the director’s customary slow build, may be surprised to find themselves watching a leisurely saga of overprotective parents and rebellious teens, biracial/adoptive identity issues and casual xenophobia. They’ll also be treated to some lovely whalespeak courtesy of those mammoth Tulkuns, who turn out to be engaging conversationalists as well as formidable fighters.

If you’re impatient, sit tight: The action is still to come, much of it dispensed by a snarling reincarnation of the first movie’s ex-military villain, Col. Miles Quaritch, here reborn — and played once more by the ferocious Stephen Lang — as a Na’vi avatar implanted with a surviving packet of the colonel’s memories. Bigger, badder and bluer than before, Quaritch 2.0 isn’t looking for unobtainium, the first movie’s stupidly, wonderfully named mineral MacGuffin. All he really wants is revenge against Jake and his family. (It’s personal for him, too.) His Na’vi transformation leaves only a handful of human characters, some of them old friends (Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao), though most of them are puny, inconsequential villains who rain down destruction on the Metkayina and their delicate ecosystem, only to reap destruction in return. Like its predecessor, “Avatar: The Way of Water” is both an environmental cautionary tale and a madly effective opportunity to root against our own kind; by the time the third act kicks in, you’ll be screaming for human blood.

Cameron’s return trip to Pandora has been long in the making and nearly as long in the mocking. Over 13 years of ever-shifting industry buzz about possible sequels, sequels to sequels and countless changes of plan, more than a few have expressed exasperation with the director’s ever-outsized ambitions and even cast doubt on the first “Avatar’s” pop-cultural legacy. It’s hardly the first time Cameron has been dinged in advance for an Olympian folly, and if the pattern holds, this latest and most ambitious picture will stun most of his naysayers into silence. “Never underestimate James Cameron” has become something of a mantra of late when, in fact, the underestimation is crucial. It’s part of the director’s hook, his wind-up showmanship, his belief that moviegoing can be a religious and even redemptive experience. The more he suffers, the more he can thrill us, and the more fully the wonder of cinema can be reborn.

You don’t have to buy into that self-mythologizing to surrender, even if only intermittently, to the lovely, uneven, transporting sprawl of “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Certainly it’s hard not to feel moved and even heartened by the conviction of Cameron’s filmmaking, the unfeigned sincerity with which he directs a young Metkayina woman to solemnly intone, “The way of water has no beginning and no end.” That could be interpreted as a dig at the running time, but it also nicely articulates Cameron’s sense of visual continuity. As with the first “Avatar,” the immersive fluidity he achieves here feels like an organic outgrowth from his premise, a reminder that all life flows harmoniously together.

Where it will flow next is a mystery, and it’d be disingenuous of me to suggest I’m not eager to find out. Until then, Pandora, so long, and thanks for all the fish.

‘Avatar: The Way of Water’

In English and Na’vi dialogue with English subtitles Rated: PG-13, for sequences of strong violence and intense action, partial nudity and some strong language Running time: 3 hours, 10 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 16 in general release

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Avatar: the way of water.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 39 Reviews
• Kids Say 112 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Long but dazzling return to Pandora has sci-fi violence.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Avatar: The Way of Water is the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron's epic 2009 mega-hit Avatar . The sequel returns to Pandora 15 years after Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) rallied the indigenous Na'vi clans against the corrupt "Sky People" (colonizing humans trying to mine…

Why Age 13+?

Sci-fi action violence. Supporting characters die due to explosions, bullet woun

Scattered strong language includes one "f--k," "holy s--t," "bulls--t," "dips--t

Brief scene of nonsexual nudity (blink-and-miss glimpse of a Na'vi woman's breas

No product placement in movie, but dozens of off-screen tie-in merchandising dea

Any Positive Content?

Messages about acceptance, unity, and teamwork. Strong environmental, pro-peace,

The women leaders of the clan are strong, brave, assertive characters, and the N

The Na'vi species is divided into clans with a variety of cultures, traditions,

Violence & Scariness

Sci-fi action violence. Supporting characters die due to explosions, bullet wounds, arrows, and dismemberment, as well as a whale-like creature's destructive movements. Several intense scenes involving combat, a ship sinking, and animal hunting that shows the killing of ancient beings. Children are held captive and at gunpoint. Bullying and pranking that leaves a teen in harm's way. Children are used as hostages. A couple of emotional deaths.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Scattered strong language includes one "f--k," "holy s--t," "bulls--t," "dips--t," "bitch," "goddamn," "damn," "piss," "hell," "oh my God," "ass," "ass-whooping," and insults like "four-fingered freak," "half-breed," "stupid," "ignorant," etc. "Jesus" used as an exclamation.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief scene of nonsexual nudity (blink-and-miss glimpse of a Na'vi woman's breasts). Adolescent Na'vi flirt and hold hands. There's a strong bond between Kiri and Spider. Jake and Neytiri embrace and kiss.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

No product placement in movie, but dozens of off-screen tie-in merchandising deals, including toys and books aimed at young kids.

Positive Messages

Messages about acceptance, unity, and teamwork. Strong environmental, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist themes. Idea that love and understanding can trump division and violence. Shows consequences, dangers, and immorality of a corrupt government colonizing and oppressing another land and people. Stresses importance of honest communication between children and their parents.

Positive Role Models

The women leaders of the clan are strong, brave, assertive characters, and the Na'vi are all deeply connected to the land. Jake and Neytiri are courageous and loving parents and clan leaders. Ronal is the spiritual leader of her community. Spider loves the Na'vi even though he's human and is forced into difficult moral situations. Lo'ak finds a way to commune with a sacred creature.

Diverse Representations

The Na'vi species is divided into clans with a variety of cultures, traditions, and belief systems, with overt parallels to Indigenous peoples (tribal tattoos and symbiotic, spiritual relationships with nature) and Indigenous history (colonialist expansion, genocide). But the filmmakers are White, and main characters are almost all voiced by non-Indigenous actors, raising issues about cultural appropriation. The women leaders of the clan are strong, brave, assertive.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Avatar: The Way of Water is the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron's epic 2009 mega-hit Avatar . The sequel returns to Pandora 15 years after Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington ) rallied the indigenous Na'vi clans against the corrupt "Sky People" (colonizing humans trying to mine and extract Pandora's resources). Jake and his mate, Neytiri ( Zoe Saldaña ), now have four children and decide to save their forest clan by seeking refuge for their family among the island dwelling Metkayina clan. Filmed mostly underwater, the three-hour-plus film is visually striking. And, like the first movie, it has sci-fi action violence, with weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and the hunting of a sacred whale-like creature. The story also features adolescent flirting, hand-holding, and crushes, as well as marital affection. Occasional strong language includes many uses of "s--t," "bitch," and "ass," as well as one "f--k." Like the first movie, this one has a strong anti-imperialist message, plus environmental and multicultural themes that stress the importance of tolerance, acceptance, and honest communication. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (39)
• Kids say (112)

Based on 39 parent reviews

3 hours of extreme unnecessary violence !

More kid friendly than the 1st, what's the story.

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER is set approximately 15 years after the events of the original Avatar . In the forests of Pandora, Jake ( Sam Worthington ) and his mate, Neytiri ( Zoe Saldaña ), are now parents to two teen sons, Neteyam ( Jamie Flatters ) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), as well as a young girl named Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and Kiri ( Sigourney Weaver ), the teen daughter they adopted after she was born under mysterious circumstances. Jake has helped the Na'vi fight against the Sky People (humans trying to mine and extract Pandora's resources), but the onslaught of the humans' military operations ramps up when they launch a new mission: sending a select group of avatars with the uploaded consciousness and memories of the long-dead Col. Quaritch ( Stephen Lang ) and his loyal soldiers. Quaritch and his Na'vi-fied squad terrorize Jake and Neytiri's Omaticaya clan until Jake convinces Neytiri that their immediate family should leave and seek refuge with the far-off island dwelling Metkayina clan, who are a different shade of blue and boast fin-like tails and flipper-like hands. Their leader, Tonowari ( Cliff Curtis ), and his spiritual leader mate, Ronal ( Kate Winslet ), tentatively grant Jake and Neytiri's family sanctuary, but eventually Quaritch tracks them down and brings the war of the Sky People to the water clans.

Is It Any Good?

James Cameron 's crowd-pleasing sequel is a spectacular technical achievement that, while overlong, manages to dazzle the senses enough to prove that the director is still a visionary. Avatar: The Way of Water isn't a movie you see for its layered, complicated plot. The storyline is simple, and the dialogue is mostly expository or cliché, particularly when Quaritch talks. But it doesn't quite matter, because Cameron puts the movie's $350 million budget to remarkable use in all of the underwater sequences, the incredible creature effects, and the overall immersive return to Pandora. It's worth seeing on the biggest screen possible, in 3D if you can. Yes, the three-hour-plus runtime is long, but it's easy to get lost in the movie's memorable world-building. The motion-capture performances are fascinating to behold, and Winslet and Curtis are welcome additions to the cast. Of the young actors, Dalton stands out as Neytiri and Jake's troublemaking younger son, Lo'ak, who befriends an outcast tulkun (the sacred alien whales). Also worth noting is Jack Champion as Spider, the human boy raised among the Na'vi but whose mask marks him as different. His bond with Kiri, who's also a little bit different, seems headed toward romance, but it's too early to tell (not to mention complicated).

Lang's Quaritch is only slightly less unhinged in this installment than he was in the first film. But he's far from the only antagonist. The Na'vi face seemingly insurmountable odds as the humans' tech gets better and deadlier. The action sequences come mostly in the third act, but there are moments of pulse-pounding peril throughout that will make audiences clutch their seats (or their partners). There's even an extended ship-sinking sequence that's reminiscent of Titanic , right down to how people grip the railing and hold their breath as areas flood. While there's no Pandoran quartet playing classical music, composer Simon Franglen uses the late James Horner's original themes to create an evocative score as the Na'vi fight for their lives. With Avatar: The Way of Water , Cameron and cinematographer Russell Carpenter have created something monumental in scope, so much so that the movie's flaws don't prevent it from being stunning.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the visual and special effects in Avatar: The Way of Water . How do they compare to those in the first movie? How has technology changed since that one was released?

What themes does James Cameron consistently work into his films? Compare aspects of Avatar to the Terminator movies and Titanic . What similarities can you find?

Discuss the difference between how humans dealt with the Na'vi in the first movie and in this sequel.

How do the different tribes from Pandora interact, work together, and use teamwork to achieve their goals? Why is that an important character strength ?

The language and culture of the Maori people indigenous to New Zealand provided director James Cameron with inspiration for the sea-based Metkayina people. What are respectful ways to acknowledge other cultures?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 16, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : March 28, 2023
• Cast : Zoe Saldana , Sam Worthington , Kate Winslet , Sigourney Weaver
• Director : James Cameron
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Topics : Adventures , Ocean Creatures , Space and Aliens
• Character Strengths : Courage , Perseverance , Teamwork
• Run time : 192 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : sequences of strong violence and intense action, partial nudity and some strong language
• Awards : Academy Award , Common Sense Selection
• Last updated : August 9, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

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‘beetlejuice’ returns and is as deceptive and problematic as the first.

Get Plugged In: New movies in theaters and shows to stream

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” like its namesake demon, can be deceptively, and seriously, problematic. Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple” is yet another show about a family that isn’t suitable for most other families.

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Read on to get Plugged In on what’s beyond the movie titles and trailers for faith-filled and family-first reviews from Focus on the Family’s Plugged In .

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice – In Theaters

The entertainment industry has always been just that: an industry. While some films indeed aspire to be art, the business itself is predicated on costs, profits and the bottom line. Sure, most filmmakers want to make good movies. But the folks who sign the checks? They want successful movies.

And in the quest for the next big success, studios are dusting off successful-but-aged films — sometimes 20, 30 or 40 years old — and sequel-izing them.

But to borrow and twist a line from “Jurassic Park” (a film all about bringing old things back to life), Just because a sequel can be made, should it?

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” feels like pure fan service. Director Tim Burton is still the cinematic master of Edward Gorey-style gloom and guffaws. The titular antihero (whose name is actually spelled Betelgeuse) is as crass and wacky as ever. The supporting cast displays an entertaining level of dysfunction. Yes, there’s even a dance number akin to the famed “Banana Boat” number from the original “Beetlejuice” — featuring possessed performers, outsized dance moves and an earworm song in all their derivative glory.

Be sure to listen in to The Plugged In Show , a weekly podcast with lighthearted reviews for parents and conversations about entertainment, pop culture and technology: 

For those who have a soft spot for the original “Beetlejuice,” the sequel will scratch that scabby itch.

But when you scratch a scab, there will be blood. Oh, yes.

If a drama contained the same level of blood and gore as “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” I suspect that it would’ve been rated R. But because the film embraces a macabre sense of humor, the censors give it a pass. And indeed, some of the ooky elements we see here do feel cartoonish. But others can feel pulled straight out of a bloody, wince-and-turn-away exorcism movie.

And while we’re on the subject of exorcisms, let’s not forget that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is—at least according to Lydia—a demon. And we laugh with and even root for that demon throughout much of the movie. (As a villain, he plays, at best, third fiddle here.) The film is predicated on calling on infernal players to do their mortal will—and at their own mortal peril. This is a Faustian story without much moral or a whiff of regard for real spirituality. That’s an issue worth thinking through.

I’m not immune to the dour charms of Tim Burton. But “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” like its namesake, can be deceptively problematic. And I’d think long and hard before calling it up.

Read the rest of the review here . Watch the trailer here .

The Perfect Couple – New Series Streaming on Netflix

They say secrets don’t make friends. But secrets also don’t make families.

Too bad Amelia didn’t learn that before she got tied up with the Winburys.

On the morning of Amelia’s wedding to Benji, the middle Winbury son, a body washed up on the shore outside the Winbury’s Nantucket manor. But not just anybody. Oh no. It’s the body of one Merritt Monaco: party girl, social media influencer, and maid of honor.

Needless to say, the nuptials did not proceed as planned.

Amelia might have been able to move on from the death of her best friend. She might have been able to accept that Merritt’s passing had been a tragic accident. But Amelia knows better.

At her rehearsal dinner the night before, Amelia had learned a life-changing secret from Merritt — one that implicated several members of Amelia’s family-to-be. The next day, as police investigated the manor for clues about what (or who) caused Merritt’s death, Benji’s mother, bestselling mystery author Greer Garrison Winbury, asks Amelia to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

It all reeks of deception. And as Amelia soon learns, nearly every member of the Winbury brood — not to mention several of their close friends — has a secret they’d like to keep, including Amelia herself.

The question that Det. Henry and Chief Carter (the police investigating Merritt’s case) have to ask themselves is this: Who among the very wealthy and very powerful Winburys would be willing to kill to keep their secrets secret?

Based on the novel of the same title by Elin Hilderbrand, Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple” explores what happens when dozens of family secrets come to light. Hearts are broken. Marriages are ruined. Lives are destroyed. All quite literally.

Tallying up the secrets alone, the Winburys have multiple extramarital affairs, premarital sex, an unplanned pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, a son who gambled away the family fortune, a covered-up suicide attempt and, of course, the murder of Merritt Monaco.

It’s unfortunate enough that viewers watch much of this play out on screen. But add in foul language, poor attitudes and vulgar behaviors. The result? Yet another show about a family that isn’t suitable for most other families.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

Plugged In is a Focus on the Family publication designed to shine a light on the world of popular entertainment while giving families the essential tools they need to understand, navigate, and impact the culture in which they live. Through our reviews, articles and discussions, we hope to spark intellectual thought, spiritual growth and a desire to follow the command of Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

Reviews written by Paul Asay and Emily Tsaio .

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission .

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Avatar: The Way of Water

Reviewed by: Charity Bishop CONTRIBUTOR

Importance of family / Family relationships and dynamics

Pantheism-like spirituality plays a strong part in this film / Worshipping the creation and the supposed “Great Mother” (Eywa, akin to the Gaia of some evironmentalists) instead of the Creator , Yahweh

Message that indigenous tribal people are far superior in spirituality and wisdom about the natural world

Politically correct environmentalism

Hollywood’s continuing push of climate crisis dramas and emotionally charged colonization propaganda

Marines cast as evil

Planet-destroying humans cast as the universe’s truest villains

Message that people need to put aside their differences and unite to save their world

WATER: A miracle of God’s Creation

Underwater life on a fictional alien planet with both jungle and sea

Making tough decisions (fight or flight for family)

Accepting people for their differences

FILM VIOLENCE —How does viewing violence in movies affect families? Answer

Prequel: “ Avatar ” (2009)

J ames Cameron proves once again he’s the king of cinema with his sequel to “ Avatar ,” a sumptuous visual masterpiece centered around the theme of fatherhood.

Set a dozen years after the original film, Jake ( Sam Worthington ) has become a father of four children—including his adopted daughter, Kiri ( Sigourney Weaver ), born from his friend Grace’s avatar after her death, and a human boy, Spider (J ack Champion ). He and Neytiri ( Zoe Saldana ) lead the Na’vi people, after successfully forcing the “sky people” (humans) to abandon Pandora. But now the sky people have returned, among them his old enemy, Quartich ( Stephen Lang ). Even though Jake fought and defeated him, before the final battle, Quartich uploaded his consciousness and his memories to a computer so he could be reborn in an Avatar’s body. Quartich does not remember being killed, but he does recall the trouble Jake caused him, and intends to “settle the score, once and for all.”

Earth is dying and humans need a new planet to colonize, so they send an advance wave of humans, including Quartich and his marines, to pave the way on the planet. After Quartich gets his hands on Spider, fearing the boy will reveal everything he knows about Jake and their home, Jake takes his family and abandons their home in the mountains to live among the coastal tribes. There, he tries to forge a new life while facing the difficulties of fatherhood. This new life will challenge each of them, and reveal their hidden talents, but they cannot remain hidden forever…

Over the last few years, there’s been an assault on men. Our society has gravitated away from traditional gender roles, leaving many young men uncertain of their purpose. But “Avatar: The Way of Water” celebrates men as the protectors of society. Jake tells us twice that protecting their family gives men a purpose, and we see him doing just that. He tries to find a balance between making sure his boys make the right decisions and being a warm and supportive parent. When the boys get out of line, he gives them a stern talking-to; when they start fights, he has them apologize (but also takes pride in the fact that the only reason they fought was to defend their sister); he is hard on them, because he loves them so much, and he sets them a good example of protecting those weaker than themselves.

Family is the core theme of the film, as each character grapples with their place in it and their responsibility to others. Jake reminds his oldest son repeatedly of his need to protect the younger ones. He chastises his second-eldest for endangering his siblings. Spider also fears “I might be like my father” (to which Kiri tells him he is not, he is his own person). Then there’s Kiri, and her search for belonging and meaning, which will resonate with children given up for adoption . She wonders why she was born, and feels different from the other children, but it’s touching to see her adopted family surround, support, and love her.

Adoption and orphans in the Bible

These characters make mistakes and reveal their own prejudices (Neytiri has an obvious preference for her own kids over Spider due to his human appearance), but ultimately choose to make the right decisions to protect their loved ones. In a way, the film is a love letter to fatherhood, full of messages young men need to hear, but it also has strong, courageous, and loving women on display.

Content-wise, if you saw the first film, you know what to expect here; the Na’vi wear almost nothing (the camera catches a brief glimpse of a nipple on an Avatar early on). There is discussion over Kiri’s parentage, as her brothers wonder which person “knocked up” Grace (it’s never made clear whether she has a human/Avatar father, or had an immaculate conception).

There’s some bad language scattered throughout (mostly sh*t, but Jesus’ name is abused once, and there’s one f-word). A Na’vi boy flips off a marine.

The violence is extreme but not bloody; the Na’vi kill a lot of humans (Neytiri shoots them with her signature arrows; Jake and others blow up their helicopters, crash their boats, stab them, and hit them). Quartich threatens Jake’s children multiple times, once threatening to cut Kiri’s throat. He shoots a sea creature to teach a lesson to a native tribe. The last thirty minutes is nonstop action, peril, and violence, as Jake and Quartich square off and beat each other mercilessly, Neytiri kills all the humans she finds, a whale smashes into a ship, and some of the Na’vi (including a character we have grown to know and love) die, along with their sea creatures.

One of the more excruciating scenes is of a whaler ship taking out one of Pandora’s whales—separating a mother and calf from the herd, driving harpoons into her chest, and killing them both, before they drill into her brain to extract a precious fluid that “stops human aging” (at $80 million dollars a vial). It’s painful to watch in its cruelty, and it may disturb children or animal lovers (as it did me).

James Cameron has made no secret of his environmentalist agenda, but this film doesn’t feel like propaganda as much as a celebration of marine life, even if it’s on another planet. It’s intended to make us treasure the ocean and its creatures, a role I believe fits us as Guardians of the Earth (God placed us here to be compassionate stewards).

Cameron’s religious beliefs are less obvious, but this film has a pantheist worldview. The Na’vi believe in a Great Mother spirit that connects all things and allows them to share and see memories through her sacred places. They pray to her, sing to her, and have a deep connection to all life, including being able to communicate with whales. The queen of the sea tribe calls one whale her “soul sister.” Kiri has a deeper connection than any other character to the “Great Mother,” and can use her creatures as a weapon.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator… — Romans 1:25 LSB

We see the Na’vi return one who has died to the sea bed, and later, that fallen Na’vi’s loved ones “visit with” this character in the memories of the soul tree. This is an unbiblical view of the afterlife.

What is ETERNAL LIFE ? and what does the Bible say about it?

What is ETERNAL DEATH ?

• Violence: Very Heavy
• Occult: Heavy
• Vulgar/Crude language: Heavy— • F-word (1 or more) • S-words (11) • “Son of a b*tch” (3) • “Ain't this a bitch” • “Perv” (what Kiri calls a guy) • Cr*p (2) • A** (5) • A**hole •  Bugger • “That really sucks” • “Who do you think knocked her up?” • “Tough b*stards”
• Profane language: Moderately Heavy— • Jesus • Hell (9) • “ Bloody H*ll” •  Holy sh*t •  D*mn (3)
• Nudity: Moderately Heavy (lots of skin on display—female and male, Na’vi and human)
• Wokeism: Minor
• Drugs/Alcohol: None

Slang definition: Bugger

Slang definition: bloody.

Learn about DISCERNMENT —wisdom in making personal entertainment decisions

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers .

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Avatar: The Way of Water

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This sequel to the macabre 1988 original, like its namesake demon, can be deceptively, and seriously, problematic.

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How Do Christian Parents Keep Up with Their Children’s Screen Consumption?  The expert media staff at Plugged In have compiled a must-read resource to help you understand the media your children consume. Years of researching and analyzing the latest media trends are compiled in Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family.  Offering practical advice and strategies to help your children navigate the ever-changing landscape of pop culture, Becoming a Screen Savvy Family includes social media, music, streaming services, video games, movies, and more to help you dialogue with your children about the content that they are exposed to. The effects of technology and media consumption on children are far-reaching, impacting their mental health, sleep patterns, attention spans, and social skills. In Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family , you’ll learn - the effects on your children’s biology, behaviors, and beliefs; - traits of engaged parents, creating a game plan, and how to step in when needed; - how to screen those screens; and - practical strategies for limiting screen time and thinking critically about media.  Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family will quickly become an essential tool to guide your family’s relationship with media and your child’s screen consumption.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Animation , Drama , Romance , Sci-Fi/Fantasy , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

• December 18, 2009
• Sam Worthington as Jake Sully; Zoe Saldana as Neytiri; Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine; Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon; Stephen Lang as Col. Miles Quatrich; Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge; Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman; CCH Pounder as Mo’at; Wes Studi as Eytucan; Laz Alonso as Tus’Tey

Home Release Date

• April 22, 2010
• James Cameron

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

Jake Sully has been asleep for six years.

More accurately, he’s been in cryogenic stasis five years, nine months and 22 days—the time needed to shuttle him and a crew of scientists and ex-Marine mercenaries from a decaying, resource-depleted Earth to the distant, forest-covered moon Pandora in the year 2154.

The job of the heavies? Protect miners, botanists and engineers from the perils of Pandora. Jake’s task, though he’s ex-military himself, is altogether different. His career was cut short by injuries that left him a paraplegic. Then he got tapped to take the place of his twin brother (a researcher who died unexpectedly) in the Avatar project, led by Dr. Grace Augustine.

Dr. Augustine has pioneered a way to make contact with the moon’s primary population, an intelligent, 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned, wide-eyed humanoid race known as the Na’vi. Blending human and Na’vi DNA, Augustine and her compatriots have bioengineered Na’vi-like bodies that can be linked through immersive virtual reality with “drivers,” of which Jake is one.

And all of that is just the setup before things really get rolling in James Cameron’s hyper-animated technology experiment.

Positive Elements

On the brink of being devoured by predators, Jake is rescued by a fierce female Na’vi warrior named Neytiri. Do Jake and Neytiri fall in love? Of course. But in the process, Jake begins to see the humans’ despoiling presence through the cat-like eyes of Pandora’s indigenous people.

Scowling from the face of the other side of the coin, Avatar’ s villains exhibit a caricatured kind of hyper-colonial wickedness. Parker Selfridge, the humans’ corporate overseer on Pandora, looks upon the Na’vi as animals that must be annihilated. Likewise, Col. Miles Quatrich is a battle-scarred attack dog who’s all too ready to commit genocide.

It’s clear who is heads and who is tails here. And, naturally, it’s only a matter of time before conflict erupts. When it does, Jake, Dr. Augustine and several other humans sacrificially fight on behalf of the oppressed, outgunned population.

The sermon is delivered in stark tones. Yet it’s undeniably true that unprovoked attacks and the taking of others’ land for personal gain is, um, wrong . The film also rightfully elevates the Na’vi’s harmonious relationship with their environment—because while the debate can rage over what it should look like exactly, living peaceably with our surroundings is still a good thing. (On its face, that is. The spiritual components wrapped into this issue are another matter.)

The Na’vi again serve as a counterpoint to the humans who have wrecked their own world and are intent upon doing it to another. Yes, we earthlings take quite a beating in Avatar . But in some ways we deserve to, especially if we identify at all with generally rapacious materialists who have only one thing on their minds—digging out the precious, energy-rich ore known as unobtanium.

Spiritual Elements

Just as the storyline involving the decimation of an indigenous population parallels early American history, so too the Na’vi’s spiritual beliefs often parallel those of Native American religions. The Na’vi worship a goddess known as Eywa, the Great Mother, a deity that seems both personal (the Na’vi pray to her) as well as encompassing the collective energy of Pandora’s living things.

Thus, the Na’vi exhibit high reverence for all plants and animals. And, as mentioned, the film’s environmental message is set against this spiritual backdrop. The trees, the forests and everything in them are not merely part of a natural ecology, but a spiritual one. And the violence perpetrated against Pandora’s creatures is not merely a physical violation, but a spiritual affront too.

The Na’vi’s holiest place is the Tree of Souls. Its airborne seeds are referred to as “pure spirits.” Its branches—more luminous tendrils than bark-covered limbs—are used in prayer rituals. Twice the Na’vi gather before this tree in what could be described as services of corporate healing and worship. In the first, they petition Eywa to save the wounded Dr. Augustine by transferring her soul from her human body into her avatar. The tribe’s spiritual leader, a female shaman (and Neytiri’s mother), says, “The Great Mother may choose to save all that she is in this body,” then prays, “Hear us please, All Mother. … Let her walk among us as one of the people.” Amid those prayers, Augustine tells Jake, “I’m with her [Eywa]. She’s real.” A similar service later involves Jake’ s attempt to become fully Na’vi. Both times, the tribe is seated, undulating and chanting ecstatically.

The Na’vi at times listen to the whispering voices of deceased ancestors. And they psychically bond with flying, almost dragon-like creatures known as banshees. During a funeral service, Neytiri tells Jake, “All energy is only borrowed. … You have to give it back.” Neytiri says of the Na’vi’s initiation ceremony, “Every person is born twice. The second time is when you earn your place among the people forever.”

Jake eventually prays to Eywa, telling her that the humans are about to destroy the Tree of Souls. Neytiri responds, “Our Great Mother does not take sides, Jake. She protects only the balance of life.” [ Spoiler Warning ] But when the planet’s creatures come to the Na’vi’s rescue in the final battle, Neytiri exults that Eywa has answered Jake’s prayers.

A Na’vi leader calls Jake’s avatar “a demon in a false body.” Col. Quatrich says of Pandora’s vicious environment, “If there is a hell, you might want to go there for some R and R.”

Sexual & Romantic Content

The Na’vi may be aliens, and they may be computer generated, but their physiology still resembles that of humans. And we see quite a bit of it. Their garb is something you might see in a National Geographic pictorial of isolated jungle tribes. Which is to say, there isn’t much there. Both men and women wear little more than loincloths, and the race’s catlike tails don’t fully obscure their backsides. Neytiri and other Na’vi females wear ornamental coverings that don’t really conceal their breasts.

As for the humans, a female pilot wears a tight, cleavage-revealing tank top. And Dr. Augustine is seen unclothed (strategically wrapped in vines). Later, Jake’s nakedness is similarly “wrapped.”

Jake and Neytiri consummate their relationship in a sensuous scene that shows them kissing and intertwined. They sleep together afterward and are said to be “mated for life.”

Augustine alludes to an old masturbation cliché. Quatrich spits out a mocking double entendre about Jake having found “some local tail.”

Violent Content

The humans’ brutal attack begins with gas canisters. And it’s not long before copters unleash missiles that bring the Na’vi’s massive “home tree” down in a scene reminiscent of the World Trade Center’s collapse. Many Na’vi are crushed, impaled or wounded, and we see survivors departing in a line, weeping and wailing. These images recall the Cherokee’s forced migration to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears.

Aerial clashes involve banshees vs. the humans’ aircraft. And while the Na’vi get mowed down by missiles and gunfire, many of their arrows somehow penetrate cockpits, taking out pilots and gunners.

The situation is similar on the ground. Scores of humans and Na’vi alike fall in a scene that’s similar in intensity to the final battle in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . Also severe are several of Jake’s close encounters with Pandora’s fearsome beasties.

Specific violent moments worth noting include Neytiri’s taking out a viperwolf with an arrow and later killing a human with two well-placed shots. She also engages in a vicious melee with Col. Quatrich: She’s riding a huge jungle beast while Quatrich controls a mech (a walking, armored vehicle). He repeatedly stabs the animal and kills it, pinning Neytiri beneath it in the process. Elsewhere, an unfortunate human’s head and shoulders end up in a banshee’s mouth. Explosions consume man, alien and beast alike. On fire, a horse-like creature runs for its life. Jake’s avatar nearly knocks the head off one human and hurls others to their deaths.

Crude or Profane Language

About a dozen s-words. Also, 10 misuses of God’s name (including six or seven pairings with “d‑‑n”) and three abuses of Jesus’ name. We hear roughly 20 other profanities (“h‑‑‑,” “a‑‑,” “b‑‑ch,” “b‑‑tard,” “p‑‑‑”) and three crude references to the male anatomy (“d‑‑k” among them).

Drug & Alcohol Content

Dr. Augustine smokes often and drinks a glass of alcohol.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Political barbs cluster among the positive messages about peace, humanitarianism and environmentalism. As if to denigrate current American foreign policy, the film includes the lines, “Our security lies in preemptive attack. We will fight terror with terror.” Somebody references the upcoming “shock and awe” campaign.

Go epic or go home.

That’s James Cameron’s way. His last feature film, 1997’s Titanic , became the highest grossing of all time (without inflation being factored in). And his other résumé entries include such well-known bombasts as Aliens, The Terminator and its sequel, True Lies and The Abyss .

Big, every one. And Avatar is bigger and bolder than them all.

Cameron began working on Avatar in 1994. Fifteen years later we have what some are saying is the most expensive film ever made—one that tops $300 million. And it’s not hard to see where he spent the money. Visually, Avatar is a feast. Lush colors and spectacular creatures dance and splash (and fight). Cameron has arguably out-Lucased Star Wars creator George Lucas when it comes to imagining and rendering a stunning world in a galaxy far, far way. And Cameron’s proprietary 3-D technology will likely enhance the experience for movie “experience” fans. (It gave me a headache.)

But we have to do more here than deliver an artistic critique. Extended scenes of near nudity (blue though it may be), intense violence and more than a little profanity pop out as much as the immersive 3-D imagery does.

Cameron’s message in Avatar is something like this: Genocidal plunderers are devoid of spiritual enlightenment and driven by their compulsive lust for another people’s resources. Time reviewer Richard Corliss wrote of the motif, “This is not only the most elaborate public-service commercial for those of the tree-hugger persuasion; it’s also a call to save what we’ve got, environmentally, and leave indigenous people as they are—an argument applicable to the attempt of any nation (say, the U.S.) to colonize another land (say, Iraq or Afghanistan).”

Says Cameron, “[In] the 16th and 17th centuries … the Europeans pretty much took over South and Central America and displaced and marginalized the indigenous peoples there. There’s just this long, wonderful history of the human race written in blood going back as far as we can remember, where we have this tendency to just take what we want without asking.”

His insurgent solution? Get in touch with your world and its spirituality and stop consuming so much stuff.

Those are great, deep thoughts—to a point. But what kind of spirituality are we talking about here? Reminding me a great deal of Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves , Cameron’s depiction of the Na’vi not only elevates tribal customs and rituals, it blurs the boundaries between God and the environment. Here the creator and her creation are indistinguishable.

A postscript: Nine minutes were added to Avatar in a Special Edition theatrical re-release about nine months after it first premiered. According to Cameron, in an interview with the Washington Post , “There are short, sort of, 10- and 15- and 20-second bits that have been added back. And there are a couple of larger chunks in the one-and-a-half to two-minute range.” One of the short adds involves Jake and Neytiri’s marriage/mating scene, prolonging their sensual foreplay just a bit, but actually not adding anything more explicit to the mix. One of the longer adds is a death scene in which Jake ceremonially takes tribal chief Tsu’tey’s life as the leadership of the tribe passes to Jake. Tsu’tey has been critically injured during the fight, and he asks Jake to finish him off. Jake does so with a dagger of sorts. We see the movement but not the contact.

A second video release, the Extended Collector’s Edition set, hit shelves on Nov. 16, 2010. In it are 16 additional minutes of new footage and 45 minutes of deleted, never-before-seen scenes. To the untrained eye—and perhaps even to the trained one—the scenes are barely noticeable and of little or no consequence to the story. Most viewers will be unable to tell the difference—apart from the already long film’s additional length. Most worthy of mention is the alternate beginning in which Jake is in a futuristic city on Earth before he is chosen to succeed his late twin brother, Tommy. We see Jake drinking a shot and trying to protect a woman who is slapped by her abusive boyfriend in a bar. A brawl results, and he’s violently thrown out of the establishment. On the other side of the content coin, a family-friendly audio track (for the original version of the film) is included that’s designed to eliminate profanities. Missed in the filtering process, however, is at least one use each of God’s name and “a‑‑.” Subtitles still contain curse words.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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• Blog: Movies

Movie Monday: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Bests Box Office

• September 9, 2024

Nothing like a little nostalgia to give the box office some extra pop.

It’s been 36 years since we last saw Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. For a lot of fans, the wait was worth it. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice coasted to a massive win this weekend, scaring up an estimated $110 million in North America. That’s the second-biggest September opening of all time, trailing just 2017’s IT for the honors.

Overseas markets weren’t quite as enamored of Michael Keaton’s white-faced demon as stateside audiences were. It cleared just $35.4 million internationally, pushing its global take to $145.4 million.

The success of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also reinforced a couple box-office lessons. First, if you want to make a profit, dust off a popular, old film that hasn’t gotten a sequel yet. Fans waited nine years between the releases of Inside Out (2015) and Inside Out 2 . And the latter is still the year’s biggest flick (with $651.9 million). There was a 28-year hiatus between Twister (1996) and Twisters , and the sequel has swept up a cool $264.6 mil.

Second … sandworms. The two movies with sandworms in them this year have both reached blockbuster status ( Dune: Part Two being the other, with its $282.1 million).

Deadpool & Wolverine , which dominated the box office for the latter part of the summer, finished a very distant second to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice . The R-rated superhero flick clawed up $7.2 million this weekend, sending its total domestic tally to $614 million.

Reagan finished third with $5.2 million, while Alien: Romulus slid into fourth place with $3.9 million.  And It Ends With Us proved that its own end is still some ways off. It earned nearly another $3.8 million to finish fifth.

The Front Room —the only other real newcomer that dared challenge Beetlejuice Beetlejuice —finished 10 th with $1.7 million.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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I had a Beetlejuice inspired fanta, and it smelled and tasted like a candle, didn’t really make me want to go watch it lol

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'I've Never Seen a Woman Direct James Bond': Zoe Saldana Hopes to Helm an Action Movie

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Acclaimed actor Zoë Saldaña sees no limits to her Hollywood career and has one major ambition she'd love to fulfil. The Avatar franchise star and Marvel Cinematic Universe actor insists she wants to direct an action movie to further boost her impressive CV.

Speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival, Saldaña stated her intent to helm an action film when she makes her directorial debut, claiming she's long been a fan of crime shows and heist films, and mentioned the James Bond franchise as a potential avenue to pursue her ambition. “ I’ve never seen a woman direct James Bond ,” she said. “I like The Equalizer . I watch crime shows, and, so, maybe in the future. I’ve always been drawn to heist themes. Heat is a film that I need to watch at least once a year and analyze it, and the way that Michael Mann just pairs it all together, the way that everybody performed it. So, I would love to start with an action-heist sort of thing .”

Why This James Bond Game Is Still Awesome 20 Years Later

Most people consider GoldenEye for the N64 to be the best James Bond game ever made, but EA Games' Everything or Nothing may actually surpass it.

Saldaña's decorated CV is filled with action titles, including the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and the last two Avengers sequels, Infinity War and Endgame, plus features in crime dramas such as Colombiana and Out of the Furnace . Having seen other women in Hollywood successfully transition from the screen to the director's chair, Saldaña sees no limits to what she can do in her career. “I never, never box myself in. I can do anything,” she said. “Just like Ang Lee did Sense and Sensibility , correct? I can also do a Jane Austen one day. You never know.”

Zoe Saldaña Is Representing Emilia Perez at TIFF

Saldaña is at TIFF to promote her operatic film, Emilia Pérez, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May and debuted in France on Aug. 21. The musical crime comedy film sees Saldaña's lawyer character, Rita Castro, help an escaped Mexican cartel leader to undergo sex reassignment surgery to evade authorities. Emilia Pérez also stars Karla Sofía Gascón as the title character and acclaimed singer Selena Gomez.

'I Still Have Hope': Zoe Saldaña Believes Star Trek 4 Will Finally Get Made

Star Trek franchise star Zoe Saldaña addresses the long-gestating fourth film of the Kelvin Timeline.

Next on the docket for Saldaña is her ongoing spy thriller series, Lioness , which debuts Season 2 on Oct. 27 via Paramount+. The action-packed series, created by Yellowstone franchise brainchild Taylor Sheridan, chronicles Saldaña's character Joe, a CIA officer in charge of the titular Marine program, as she balances her personal and professional life amid the war on terror.

Meanwhile, Saldaña's next film will be the anticipated Avatar threequel, Fire and Ash , which sees her reprise her role as Neytiri, the wife of Sam Worthington's Jake Sully. The previous Avatar films are two of the three highest-grossing movies ever made, helping Saldaña become the second-highest-grossing actress in history and the only actor of all time to feature in four films that crossed $2 billion at the box office. Saldaña claimed earlier this year that the Avatar films have been "groundbreaking," and expressed optimism about the franchise's future.

Fire and Ash opens in theaters on Dec. 19, 2025. Saldaña and her co-stars have been navigating production on Avatar 4 , which premieres on Dec. 21, 2029.

Source: Variety

The James Bond franchise focuses on the titular British Secret Service agent, who has the codename 007.

• zoe saldana