By George & Josh Bate
Despite regular decries of their impact on pop culture and true popularity, the Avatar films are events that transcend cinema. People who rarely see movies in the theater, perhaps only a handful of times per decade, seem to always make an exception to see James Cameron’s latest, visually dazzling foray in Pandora. But 16 years and 2 years into the franchise and Avatar has yet to rise above its status as an unrivaled visual spectacle. Routine stories filled with clichés, jagged dialogue, thin characters, and excessive runtimes that eventually turn the once dazzling visuals dizzying and disorienting have, so far, stopped the Avatar franchise from achieving true greatness. Remarkably, for the first time, Avatar: Fire and Ash changes course for the franchise and finally gives much needed narrative and emotional depth to accompany its immense technical achievements.
Avatar: Fire and Ash takes place approximately one year after the events of Avatar: The Way of Water. Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Zoe Saldaña) family has settled in with the Metkayina clan, led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife Ronal (Kate Winslet), although they are still scarred by the death of their son Neteyam. The family finds their peace short-lived when an expedition to relocate Spider (Jack Champion) is interrupted by the volcano-dwelling Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash People. Led by the appropriately fiery Varang (Oona Chaplin), the Ash People eventually ally with Jake’s nemesis Quaritch (Stephen Lang), together posing a greater threat to Pandora and the Sully family than ever before.
Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water didn’t leave much of a lasting impression on us, unlike many viewers. As has been said by every film commentator under the sun, the visuals were spectacular and boundary-pushing, but, underlying these visuals, were characters we couldn’t connect to, stories we didn’t care about, and runtimes that made us eager for the credits to roll. Given these opinions, we headed into Avatar: Fire and Ash with apprehension, but, after an admittedly grueling 197 minutes, finally found ourselves falling in love with an Avatar movie.
For the first time in the franchise, the quality of storytelling, character work & emotional weight matches the astonishing visuals. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver find an interesting entry point into the story of this third installment by positioning Spider, the human teenaged son of Quaritch, as the central character. It’s a risky move that doesn’t entirely pay off due to Champion’s shaky performance, not aided by tons of cringe-worthy dialogue. But, overall, this narrative pivot works in breathing new life in the series and expanding the world-building in unexpected ways.
With Spider at its center, Avatar: Fire and Ash once again focuses on the Sully family, who are forever changed after the loss of their son Neteyam in the previous film. Marking a shift from the typically flat attempts to elicit emotion in the franchise, the film addresses grief and the toll this takes on our individual well-being and the well-being of the family unit with surprising depth and nuance. Conversations between Worthington’s Jake Sully and his son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) strike a nerve in how raw and real they feel as the two wrestle with blame and say unspeakable things to one another as a result. The exploration of grief through Neytiri is similarly compelling, with improvements in already-extraordinary motion capture technology allowing Saldaña to bring powerful emotion to her character and the film overall.
Consistent with its two predecessors, Avatar: Fire and Ash continues to wear its allegories to colonialism firmly and overtly on its sleeve. However, this time around, these themes seem to be handled with greater care as the stakes are ramped up considerably and the disturbing parallels to real-life colonial efforts become increasingly apparent. It’s devoid of any nuance in its approach to this theme but nonetheless triumphs as a striking condemnation of colonialism, made all the more bold by the fact that the film is distributed by one of the world’s biggest media empires.
Through its more extensive dabbling in colonialism allegories, Cameron’s film achieves a feat his previous two efforts could not: to foster investment in the characters and the world they inhabit. Cameron helms Fire and Ash with an intensity of directing and storytelling, such that no one ever seems safe from death. With the Sully family and, ultimately, all of Pandora on the line to such an extent, the film excels in making one genuinely care about what’s going on and concerned for our protagonists amidst a growing array of threats to their well-being.
And threats, both old and new, are around every corner in Avatar: Fire and Ash. Although Cameron structures the story around three distinct acts, the film’s narrative takes on a cascading approach – one unfortunate event leads to another which leads to another which leads to another. The bulk of these unfortunate events are triggered by Stephen Lang’s Colonel Miles Quaritch and Oona Chaplin’s Varang. Quaritch has been a mediocre villain at best so far, but, in Fire and Ash, Lang is afforded more freedom to go deviously funny with his character. With more personality and a story that investigates where his true loyalties lie, Quaritch transforms into a far more interesting and formidable antagonist this time around.
Interesting and formidable also perfectly describe Varang, the new antagonist introduced in Fire and Ash. Oona Chaplin’s character possesses a veracity and instability not seen in the franchise to date, culminating in a villain as unsettling as she is unpredictable. Whereas Quaritch represents a more measured, calculated antagonist for the Sullys, Varang is fiery, erratic, and, as a result, even more terrifying. Disappointingly, however, not much of her background is revealed and she drops out of the story for an extended period of time before returning for the grand finale, at which she stoops to new levels of menace.
Before getting to this grand finale though, Avatar: Fire and Ash missteps by having a resolution to its second act that feels like a conclusion to the entire film. Already pushing beyond two hours, Cameron’s film features an epic, high-stakes second act that easily exceeds the scale of most blockbusters’ culminations. Due to the scope of this second act, Fire and Ash appears like its heading for a conclusion, especially as the narration from Lo’ak ramps up and a set-up for the following film seemingly starts. Unexpectedly, however, this is not a set-up for the following, but, rather, the beginning of an entire third act that encompasses another hour of runtime. Subsequently, Fire and Ash grows tiring as it plods through its bloated final act, which stylistically bears too much of a resemblance to the conclusion of The Way of Water.
Problems with the third act speak to broader issues with pacing for the film. Cameron is no stranger to films sporting bulky runtimes and, nowadays, neither are audiences, with 3+ hour films like Oppenheimer and Avengers: Endgame earning plaudits and financial success alike. Unlike those films though, Avatar: Fire and Ash feels like a movie that is over three hours and is desperately crying out for a tighter edit and even the removal of entire sequences. In doing so, the third Avatar film would flow more seamlessly and, by the time its third act arrives, the viewer hasn’t become jaded by hours of dizzying visuals and high-stakes set-pieces yet.
In this regard, the most apt comparison to Avatar: Fire and Ash, for better and for worse, may be Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. The trilogy capper for Disney’s Johnny Depp-led series similarly sported an aggressively long runtime that tested one’s patience due to how much of that runtime was dedicated to massive action set-pieces populated by a bulky ensemble of characters. But, like At World’s End, Fire and Ash possesses an adventurous spirit and a sense of wonder that few films ever come close to. Not everything in the story may work or be necessary and, by the end of the film, you may feel like you’ve run a marathon, but there’s nonetheless something undeniably delightful about immersing oneself in a sprawling, lived-in world and a sweeping narrative.
VERDICT: 7/10
Avatar: Fire and Ash finally elevates James Cameron’s ambitious sci-fi franchise above and beyond its technical achievements with character work, storytelling, and emotional weight to match its astonishing visuals. Although riddled with pacing issues and running far too long, the third Avatar film compels with a moving story about grief and colonial overreach, driven by characters you genuinely come to care about. Positioning Spider at the heart of the story works in breathing new life into the narrative and interestingly expanding the world-building and lore, although Jack Champion’s stiff performance and cringe-worthy dialogue detract from immersion in the story and its characters. Zoe Saldaña stands out with a performance that takes full advantage of the cutting-edge motion capture technology at her disposal and brings poignant emotion to Neytiri and the film more broadly. Oona Chaplin, meanwhile, triumphs as the voracious and unpredictable Varang, while Stephen Lang manages to add much-needed depth and humor to the previously mundane Quaritch. A bulky third act that spawns from an already intense and a second act worthy of a final act in any other blockbuster means the dizzying visuals of Fire and Ash overstay their welcome and investment in the story progressively declines. However, overall, Cameron must be commended for crafting yet another sweeping sci-fi adventure that pushes the boundaries of what cinema can achieve. At last, visual spectacle is accompanied with substantive character development and emotional weight, easily making Avatar: Fire and Ash the best installment of the franchise and a monumental cinematic achievement.