Who's the king of the world? Who revolutionizes filmmaking technology every time he sits in the director's chair? Who has repeatedly changed the landscape of blockbuster filmmaking every single time he plays the game? James Cameron, that's who. He's been on the court making movies since the late 70s but had his first turn in the director's chair when he directed Piranha II: The Spawning, a film that he has gone on to mostly disown. Fish aside, the man has a murderer's row of bangers to his name. I mean, he made both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, as well as Aliens, The Abyss, and True Lies.

In 1997, his biggest movie to date was released — Titanic, a movie that would go on to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. Just when it seemed Cameron had hit the peak of his career, he went on to top the box office gross for Titanic with 2009's Avatar, the current highest-grossing movie ever. Just when the world thinks Big Jim has spent all his chips and is down for the count, he comes back swinging. The guy is not without his problems though. Cameron is notoriously difficult to work with, as arrogant as one can be, and seems a bit too caught up in his own work (5 Avatar films planned), but honestly... that's kind of what makes him great. Nobody can beat James Cameron when it comes to being the best action director in the game.

What 2022 Has Had to Offer

Fighter pilots in the air

So listen, plenty of directors have dropped action films this year. Robert Eggers' The Northman and Matt Reeves' The Batman brought some seriously brutal set pieces and action sequences to theaters. These movies rocked audiences in a sensory overload of pummeling, gritty beatdowns - two great films not necessarily for those looking to take on a rollicking, uplifting ride. For those hoping to have more fun, Top Gun: Maverick was a good old-fashioned, perfectly structured action film. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it spins the wheel better than anyone in the game. One film that tried to bring a new angle to the wheel of movies was Michael Bay's Ambulance, a picture in which Bay utilized camera drones to fly up and down highways, over and under cars, and generally get wilder shots than one could get by means of shooting handheld. So yeah, Ambulance used drones to film an action movie in ways that had never been done before, cool. Except, Jim Cameron over at The Way of Water invented new technologies to take us back to Pandora and into its oceans.

Changing the Game

Jamie Flatters as Neteyam and Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri in Avatar: The Way of Water
Image via 20th Century Studios

For this new Avatar film, if you couldn't tell by the title, Cameron wanted to make this film as water-centric as possible, meaning it was time we started diving into the planet's oceans. Acting as Pandora's oceans, a massive performance tank was built for the actors to swim around and act in. This gargantuan pool was 32 feet deep, holding a staggering 90,000 gallons. In order to achieve convincing underwater set pieces, the actors had to learn how to hold their breath for several minutes at a time and actually perform under the surface - mo-cap suits and all. Kate Winslet holds the record for staying under longer than any of her fellow cast members at 7 minutes and 14 seconds, a pretty ironic turn for her career after almost drowning on the set of Titanic! To simulate their characters rapidly swimming upwards through the water, the actors even wore jetpack-like apparatuses. Cameron wasn't trying to just play around and fake his way through underwater scenes, he wanted to do things for real.

But for the things that couldn't ever possibly be real, all that lies between the aliens and extravagant vistas of Pandora, James Cameron had to lean into CGI. Listen, some things you can't catch on film, and Cameron's cool with that - he's just going to make it look as real as possible. Loads of filmmakers can say that about their big-budget, earth-shattering action films, but loads of them still end up looking like pretty great CGI. Not here. Call it recency bias, call it gut reaction, well I'll call it the truth — The Way of Water has the best effects in movie history. This is far from a hot take, but there are many naysayers out in the wild right now trying to bring down this movie's accomplishments, and it's nothing but a bunch of heresy! The man won't stand for anything less than perfection, and it shows here, but that's where his controversial nature starts rearing his head.

RELATED: 'Avatar' Never Died, Its Impact Is Just Harder to See

James Cameron Isn't Perfect, But He Chases Perfection

James Cameron on set of one of his films giving instructions.

James Cameron is the greatest, and that's largely due to the fact that the guy is a perfectionist. He chases the impossible and, every time, ends up scoring it, but that comes with dragging others along with him. His cast members, crew mates, and studios are all figures who are always greatly aspirational and do anything and everything to fulfill Cameron's vision, yet he continues to ask more of them. Sometimes he doesn't just ask, either. The man is known for being a pretty difficult person to work with. If something isn't living quite up to the idea he had in his head, he's not one to hold back from passively or directly belittling others.

With The Way of Water in particular, VFX artists worked for years and years doing hundreds of different versions of almost every shot to achieve Cameron's vision, and even after all that time, he pushed for more, polishing up even the most minute details. I guess that's how you achieve the title of greatest CGI work in history! As previously mentioned, Kate Winslet committed so hard to her performance in Titanic that she almost drowned, vowing to never step foot on another James Cameron set again, yet has come along to star in The Way of Water all these years later. There are pros and cons to aspiring to absolute perfection, but it seems as though those who have been involved with Cameron's films ultimately don't regret their time spent. It's only so often that you get to work with one of the greats.

Cameron Is Arrogant For Good Reason

Britain Dalton as Lo'ak with Payakan in Avatar: The Way of Water
Image via 20th Century Studios

Another troubling, but honestly kind of great, thing about James Cameron is his arrogance. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone on the face of the Earth that is as confident as him. There's a joke that goes around among those that have worked on his sets saying that Cameron can do everyone's job better than them. If he's unhappy with a worker's pace or the quality of their job, he'll jump in their position and get it done for them. The guy knows that he rocks, that he's a total film workforce wrapped up in one person, and that's one of the reasons he's been able to change the landscape of the medium so many times. He gloats about his movies and the importance of all of them as hard as he does because of the work that people put into them, aside from the fact that he has historically revolutionized movies over and over again.

But with all of this talk about action, how thrilling are his scenes really? Well, history has spoken for movies like his Terminator films and Aliens, just to name a few. He's one of the most highly regarded in the genre, but what about The Way of Water? Well, honestly, it's right up there with everything else he's done. That's right, even up there with Terminator 2, but not necessarily throughout its entire runtime. This new Avatar movie spends the better part of its first two hours investing audiences in its characters, something the first movie fell short in. It can kind of feel like the movie is meandering a bit here and there in its first two hours, but man, once that third act hits, you'll realize that this generous amount of time was spent investing you in the main family so that the finale's stakes hit as hard as possible.

The last hour of Way of the Water is riveting. Once things get rolling, they don't slow down. During the long stretches of downtime in Cameron's two Avatar films, it can feel like the guy has lost his touch. So much of the original Avatar and The Way of Water brings audiences along in getting to know the cultures of Pandora, the rules of the avatar bodies, and the ways of the world in general. Your mileage may vary in these segments, but man, when Cameron gets to start shooting arrows and firing off machine guns, it's an absolute marvel. Go see The Way of Water and act like that last hour isn't the most exciting, throttling stretch of a movie that you've seen in forever, we dare you. As problematic as he can be, James Cameron is a man that refuses to accept anything but the best. He's consistently changed the game, demolished box office records, and taken the throne not only as king of the world but as the best action filmmaker working today.