Avatar: Fire and Ash, 2025.
Directed by James Cameron.
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, David Thewlis, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jamie Flatters, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr., Matt Gerald, Dileep Rao, Daniel Lough, Kevin Dorman, Keston John, Alicia Vela-Bailey, and Johnny Alexander.
SYNOPSIS:
Jake and Neytiri’s family grapples with grief after Neteyam’s death, encountering a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe, the Ash People, who are led by the fiery Varang, as the conflict on Pandora escalates and a new moral focus emerges.
At one point during one of the seemingly endless circular encounters in Avatar: Fire and Ash, (especially if director James Cameron sticks to his plans of making five films in this franchise) former soldier turned blue family man (or family Na’vi?) and protector Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) tells his still-in-pursuit-commander-nemesis-transferred-to-a-Na’vi-body Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) that the world of Pandora runs deeper than he or anyone imagines, and to open his eyes. It’s part of a plot point in which Jake encourages the villainous Quaritch to change his ways.
More fascinatingly, it comes across as a plea of trust from James Cameron (once again writing the screenplay alongside Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver) that there is still much untapped lore and stories to tell in this world. If this repetitive The Way of Water retread is anything to go by, more isn’t justified. Even taken as a spectacle, the unmatched and undeniably stunning visuals (not to mention the most expressive motion capture ever put to screen, movie or video game), that aspect is less impactful, being only two years removed from the last installment rather than a decade, which is not to be confused with less impressive. Fortunately for the film and its gargantuan 3+ hour running time, James Cameron still has enough razzle-dazzle to scoot by here on unparalleled marvel alone, even if the narrative and character expansions are bare-bones.
That’s also what makes it disappointing that this third entry, while introducing a new group dubbed the Ash People led by the strikingly conceptualized Varang (Oona Chaplin) – no one creates scenery-chewing, magnetic, and badass-looking villains quite like James Cameron – and their plight with feeling left behind, rebelling against Pandora religion, Avatar: Fire and Ash is stuck in a cycle of Jake endangering his family (and, by extension, everyone around them) with Quaritch hunting him down for vengeance but this time more fixated on his human son living among them, Spider (Jack Champion) who undergoes a physical transformation that makes him a valuable experiment and, for better or worse, the most important living being in this world. Even the corrupt and greedy marine biologists are back hunting the same godlike sea creatures, leading to what essentially feels like a restaging, if slightly different, riff on the climactic action beat that culminated in last time around.
Worse, whereas The Way of Water had a tighter, more graceful flow from storytelling to spectacle, with sequences extended and drawn out in rapturously entertaining ways, the pacing here is clunkier and frustrating, as every time these characters collide and fight, the story resets and doesn’t necessarily progress. For as much exciting action as there is here, the film also frustratingly starts and stops too much. The last thing I ever expected to type about Avatar: Fire and Ash is that, for all the entrancing technical wizardry on display, fantastical world immersion, and imaginative character designs (complete with occasional macho and corny dialogue that fits, namely since the presentation is in a high frame rate consistently playing like the world’s most expensive gaming cut scene), is often dull.
Yes, everything here, from a special-effects standpoint, is painstakingly crafted, with compelling characters that James Cameron clearly loves (something that shows and allows us to take the story seriously). Staggeringly epic action sequences are worth singling out as in a tier of its own (it’s also a modern movie free from the generally garish and washed-out look of others in this generation), but it’s all in service of a film that is not aware of its strengths, but instead committed to not going anywhere. There are a couple of important details here that one could tell someone before they watch the inevitable Avatar 4, and they will be caught up without needing to watch this. If Avatar: The Way of Water was filler (something I wholeheartedly disagree with), then Avatar: Fire and Ash is nothing. And that’s something that hurts to say.
Without spoiling too much, the single best scene in the entire film has nothing to do with epic-scale warring, but a smoldering courting from Quaritch for Varang and her army of Ash People to join forces with his group. In a film that’s over three hours, it would also have been welcome to focus more on the Ash People, their past, and their current inner workings alongside their perception of Pandora. It’s not a shock that James Cameron can invest viewers into a villain without doing so, but the alternative of watching Jake grapple with militarizing the Na’vi and insisting everyone learn how to use “sky people” firearms while coming to terms with whether or not he can actually protect his family isn’t as engaging; the latter half comes across as déjà vu.
The presence of Spider amplifies the target on everyone’s backs, with Jake convinced the boy needs to return to his world. His significant other Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), with rage building inside her stemming from the family losing a child in the climax of the previous film, encourages a more aggressive approach and is ready to kill Spider if him being a part of the family threatens their remaining children (with one of them once again a 14-year-old motion captured by Sigourney Weaver, which is not as effective a voice performance this time as there are scenes of loud agony and pain where she sounds her age). The children also get to continue their plot arcs, with similarly slim narrative progression.
Not without glimpses of movie-magic charm and emotional moments would one dare say James Cameron is losing his touch. However, Avatar: Fire and Ash is all the proof anyone needs to question whether five of these are required, as it’s beginning to look more and more as if the world and characters aren’t as rich as the filmmaker believes they are. It’s another action-packed technical marvel with sincere, endearing characters, but the cycling nature of those elements is starting to wear thin and yield diminishing returns.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
