TL;DR – Avatar is pomp and circumstance like no one else in the business is doing at the moment, except maybe the other Avatar films, which are doing the same thing very much.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Avatar: Fire and Ash Review Introduction –

Truly, there is nothing out there at the moment with the ambition and multi-coloured excellence like Avatar. Just three hours of non-stop visual excellence for your eyeballs with a sheer tenacity that we don’t see come out of Hollywood much anymore. But, this is the third outing in the series, and the question is: can it keep feeling fresh coming back to the same world again and again? Before we jump in, I do want to make clear that for this review, we watched the standard presentation, so no 3D, 4DX or other extras other than the meal I ordered halfway through because I splurged on the nice seats. So, we won’t be able to comment on whether the 3D, etc., is worth the ticket price.

So, to set the scene, everyone is still reeling from the end of Avatar: The Way of Water, where to save his family, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Zoe Saldaña) son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) sacrificed himself to save his family, and Spider (Jack Champion) no less. Everyone is grieving in their own way, and most of those ways are not very helpful. However, after some battery mix-ups show how vulnerable Spider is out here in the wilds. The parents decide it’s time to send Spider back to the researchers, where he will be closer to humans and safer. It is a long trip back, full of dangers, but not just from humans/sky people. For within the Navi, there are the Mangkwan clan led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), who are raiding and killing all those they come across.

Visuals

It is not hard to say that this is the best visuals that we have seen in an age when it comes to digital artistry. The planet of Pandora feels lush and real in a way that you almost wish you could reach out and touch it, go swimming in its oceans, and walk through its forests. This is taken to a new level with the introduction of the Wind Traders led by Peylak (David Thewlis). They have these ships, which are a combination of two different animals: a giant Portuguese man-of-war-like creature that floats thanks to a giant gasbag and a sort of Nudibranch that provides forward momentum. It is such an odd sight to see, maybe not so strange if you have watched Nope, but it works so well.

There are genuinely no comparisons when it comes to the visual excellence on display here, and that is even before we get to the motion capture. No one is doing motion capture as well as this in the industry. All of the Navi characters are so seamlessly created that you will forget they are digital creations at times. Part of that is coming from the acting, of course, there is a reason that you hire people like Sigourney Weaver and Kate Winslet, even though you never see their faces. But then you do because that performance and those characters are melded together.   

Characters

This is a film with so many characters that you will lose track of how many people there are during its runtime. Indeed, I had to have the Wiki open when writing this review just to be sure that I got everyone right. However, what the film is very good at doing is making sure that you always know the vibes of who a character is, so if you can’t remember who that person was, you will know immediately where they fit in the story. I would say that everyone is pretty much on par with their previous films, but with an added level of grief that works for some but feels a bit forced in others. However, I will say that this film is over three hours, and there are still big-name additions to the film, such as CCH Pounder, Edie Falco & Giovanni Ribisi, who feel underutilised.

On that front, there also feels like there were some missed opportunities in this film. I understand the role that the Mangkwan clan play in this film, especially Varang, who exists as a cautionary tale for Neytiri if she continues to let grief fill her heart with hate. But they are also a huge, missed opportunity for the film. Navi apostates are a fascinating concept to play around with. Yet, here they felt more like walking stereotypes, which, given that the film is already pulling heavily from Polynesian and Indigenous cultures, makes the situation feel a little on the nose, the more I have pondered on it since watching the movie.    

Story

There is a straightforward litmus test that you can do to see if you will like the story of this film: did you like the story of the last two? If you did, then you should be fine here because it is just the same thing over and over again. In some ways, I am being a touch facetious with that, because no, they are not entirely identical. However, all the big narrative beats play out as if this is Avatar: The Way of Water redo time, but with added grief, and we already know how to swim. For example, Spider getting coopted by forces outside of his control. This is most noticeable in the final action set piece, which follows the same narrative throughline as all the other films. Almost down to the same story plot points happening to the same characters, but with an added Chekhov’s magnetic anomaly.

While this is frustrating, it does not completely derail the film, mainly because everything else is firing at such a high level. However, it is indicative of some of the narrative cracks starting to show, which I hope they work on for the next outing. For example, I think we have reached the end of the engaging narrative for Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) unless they dramatically change things next time. The ending did land, but the more I think about these films, the more I feel that they did Michelle Rodriguez dirty.

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Avatar: Fire and Ash? Yes. Despite the narrative déjà vu, the sheer audio-visual ambition still makes this worth seeing on the biggest screen you can find. You are not going to get a spectacle anywhere close to this anywhere else at the moment. It is bombastic, bright, and beautiful. It is starting to show some fraying at the edges, but that does not entirely take away from the whole.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Avatar: Fire and Ash
Directed by – James Cameron
Story by – James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman & Shane Salerno
Screenplay by – James Cameron, Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver
Based on – Avatar by James Cameron
Music by – Simon Franglen
Cinematography by – Russell Carpenter
Edited by – Stephen E. Rivkin, David Brenner, Nicolas de Toth, John Refoua, Jason Gaudio & James Cameron
Production/Distribution Companies – Lightstorm Entertainment, 20th Century Studios & Disney Motion Pictures 
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, Wes Studi & Laz Alonso
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: 12; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 12A; United States: PG-13