Ahead of the re-release I revisited Avatar: The Way of Water, and it's much more than a technical marvel

Avatar skepticism was at an all-time high during the run-up to The Way of Water's release in December 2022. After a 13-year wait for the sequel to the biggest film of all time, did anyone still care about Pandora and its blue-hued natives? Turns out they did, to the tune of some $2.3bn at the global box office. Doubt Big Jim Cameron at your peril.

And yet, Na'vi naysayers still found a way to downplay the film landing at #3 in all-time box office charts, touting the peerless technical achievements while claiming that the story and characters fell short. "No cultural footprint" is a common jibe.

I'm here to tell you that's dead wrong: Avatar isn't just a trailblazing technical achievement, it's contemporary cinema's greatest family saga, and The Way of Water left me a blubbering wreck that has me fearing what's in store for the Sully tribe in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Sully loaded

It's almost redundant at this stage to laud the artistic achievements of Wētā FX in building Pandora. Heck, the 16-year-old Avatar still looks better than most pixel-powered movies released today. Avatar, and particularly The Way of Water, are so far ahead of the game technically that it's understandable why the immersive world-building gets the lion's share of the plaudits at the expense of Cameron and co.'s narrative nous. But the story engine powering Avatar is just as important and enveloping as Pandora's verdant rainforests and bioluminescent oceans.

Jumping ahead 16 years following the events of Avatar, The Way of Water picks up with human-turned-native Jake Sully now head of the Omatikaya clan. Alongside Neytiri, they are part of a growing family – sons Neteyam and Lo'ak, daughters Tuk and Kiri, and then there's family-friend Spider, the child of Col. Miles Quaritch. Thanks to a rather ghoulish bit of new tech, Quaritch returns from the dead here as a 'Recombinant' whose human memories have been implanted in a Na'vi Avatar body, so he can be the tip of the spear for a new RDA invasion of Pandora.

This is an elegant solution to a problem that could easily overwhelm Avatar – how do you maintain a personal focus in a story with (inter)planetary stakes? The Sullys' war is the war for Pandora in microcosm, as Recom Quaritch vows vengeance on Jake, Neytiri, and their family for his death. Evacuating to the coastal home of the Metkayina clan with Quaritch in pursuit, this time it isn't just Jake who finds himself a fish out of water.

It's during this aquatic second act that the film's rich character work comes together, as the film replaces the more archetypal stranger in a strange land hero's journey of the first film for something far knottier and rewardingly complex. The sibling dynamics are firmly established – big brother Neteyam is the protector, younger brother Lo'ak is the empath, 8-year-old Tuk is the baby, and adopted sister Kiri (memorably played by Sigourney Weaver) has a whole raft of secrets to be uncovered. Spider, meanwhile, is the wild card. Allied to Jake and the Na'vi, but of another world – it's a dynamic ripe with dramatic potential.

The film doesn't skimp on the world-building either. The Tulkun – a species of intelligent space whales – prove a thrilling and emotive new addition, and a far more effective McGuffin for the RDA-at-large to be chasing than Unobtanium. If you didn't walk away from The Way of Water having shed a tear over the outcast Payakan and his tender bond with Lo'ak, you're made of sturdier stuff than I.

Family despair

Despite clocking in at over 3 hours, The Way of Water wastes surprisingly little time moving the pieces into place for a sensational and devastating third-act showdown. At this stage, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Cameron can assemble a best-in-class battle sequence. What's maybe a little more surprising is that The Way of Water hits as hard as it does emotionally – by killing off one of the Sully tribe.

Sitting down to watch The Way of Water a mere three weeks after I became a father back in 2022 – an emotionally raw period for anyone – Neteyam's tragic death hit a little close to home. It's a beautifully rendered and agonisingly well-performed sequence (Zoe Saldaña should have got her Oscar for Neytiri's guttural cries of anguish here, not for being the single redeeming element of Emilia Pérez), but one I barely saw through streams of tears. Re-watching it almost three years later proved no less easy – its power undiminished by time.

The later image of Neteyam being cradled by Eywa as the Sullys say goodbye to their fallen son is a shot that has never quite left my mind. It transports me back to those early days when I held my daughter just that little bit tighter in my arms as I would rock her to sleep in the days and weeks after watching the film. The idea of Neteyam's hoped-for future being extinguished in an instant was almost too much to bear.

The catharsis of Jake and Neytiri taking the fight to Quaritch in their grief provides some essential relief, but the film doesn't underplay the significance of the loss. The Way of Water ends not on a bang, but in a quiet moment by a pond, as Jake and Neytiri revisit an early memory of Neteyam catching fish. It might be the most touching moment Cameron has ever committed to the screen.

For all the interstellar forces at play in the Avatar movies, and for all its technical razzle dazzle, The Way of Water works as well as it does because it puts family first. I fear where the story will go next after the cutthroat second instalment. But as long as Fire and Ash, and subsequent sequels, remember that spectacle only works when there's an underpinning story worth telling, Avatar will always be much more than a pretty picture.

Avatar: The Way of Water re-releases in theaters for one week only from 3 October. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.