Directed By James Cameron

Starring – Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver

The Plot – Jake (Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Saldana) family grapples with grief after Neteyam’s (Jamie Flatters) death, encountering a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe, the Ash People, who are led by the fiery Varang (Oona Chaplin), as the conflict on Pandora escalates and a new moral focus emerges.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images, some strong adult language, thematic elements and suggestive material

Avatar: Fire and Ash | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Even after forty-five years as a master storyteller, James Cameron films are still the pinnacle of these highly immersive explorations of escapism that deserve to be seen on the biggest screen imaginable, and while repetition nearly plagues most of “Fire and Ash” to derivative complacency, Cameron’s touch on this franchise is simply immeasurable, particularly in the epic scope and scale of Pandora, that somehow continues to expand, even three films deep in this series. On a visual perspective, the film continues to maintain its grip on cutting edge technology in the world of artificiality, particularly with special effects techniques that not only breed an effortless tangibility in the believability that our minds capably conjure within the suppressed doubt of our interpretations, but also the immensity and breathtaking beauty of this fantastically mystical world come to life, offering us ample opportunity in his patient filmmaking to indulge in scenery and impeccable framing that grandly galvanizes the magic that still exists in Cameron’s distinct vision, bringing just as much beauty in the togetherness of community, while also the horrors of war driven by greed and endless obsession. This leads to the very best action sequences of the entire franchise, specifically in the depths of many exhilaratingly enthralling set pieces that maximize tension and danger accordingly, with the orchestral achievements of Simon Franglen’s instrumentals driving so much urgency and epic underlining to the air of the commanding imagery. My favorite among them is definitely the big climax blow-off that makes up roughly forty minutes of the film’s final hour, but there’s one in the middle of the second act pertaining to gravity shifts that definitely maintained my attention, even in a story that I was only remotely invested in, and considering the movie begins merely moments after the death of Neteyam, it effortlessly appraises stakes in ways that attain legitimate vulnerability, even with characters who are blessed with such supernatural feats of strength and imposing size. As for the script, when it does reach for occasional originality in the extent of its aforementioned expansive world-building, it stumbles into this installment’s primary conflict, in which this newly introduced Fire tribe aggressively establishes dominance inside of a cultural eradication. With an overwhelmingly assertive 190 minute runtime to the storytelling’s credit, the script is able to take its time fleshing out the backstory of this tribe in ways that materialize empathy, even in the extent of their devastatingly deceptive actions, and with the addition of Varang, the series newest antagonist, driving the devastation, it not only unlocks the mesmerizing sultriness of Oona Chaplin’s attention-stealing turn, but also gives us a captivating dynamic between her and Quaritch, the likes of which finally cement some much-needed humanity for the Stephen Lang’s latter. Chaplin’s all-in performance as a mystical cynic void of faith is very much as satisfyingly over-the-top as this franchise’s conservative characterization needs to elicit something truly memorable, especially with her taking full advantage of the camera placement, in order to exaggerate her expressive impulses towards making the character feel unsalvageable. But even throughout some of the character’s most unforgivable of acts, Chaplin revels in the darkness in ways that could simultaneously make you laugh or squirm with uneasiness, and the result of her efforts feel like the catalyst that ultimately drives the series darkest and most twisted installment, perhaps as the closing of one chapter, or even the beginning of another. Zoe Saldana also radiates another thickly emotive turn as Neytiri, holding so many of the tender moments of the film’s hardest hitting adversity in the palm of her hands, with vitriolic rage and unrelenting remorse that bring the motherly protector out of her so earnestly. While Saldana is deduced a bit to more of a supporting role this time around when compared to the focus she garnered in “The Way of Water”, her periodic exploits elicit dramatics with overwhelming intensity and resilience, proving why Saldana has carved out a dependable reputation in a series that virtually gravitates around her.

NEGATIVES

Say what you will about the thirteen years that passed between the series first and second installments, but they ultimately gave Cameron unlimited time to flesh out more original ideas to the enticing world-building that so much of this series depends on, an advantageous aspect that this movie and its three years of production simply don’t have in a third installment that feels heavily derivative of its previous chapter. Part of this certainly stems from Cameron going on record and stating that “The Way of Water” was so big that we ultimately cut it into two chapters, but much more problems in the script pertain to its instance to not only reenact the very same structure of scenes and sequences from its predecessor, with a firm dominance of the water to its established setting, but also little in the way of furthering the storytelling that justifies a bloated three hour runtime, regardless of its mostly consistent pacing continuously pushing the story forward. Considering Cameron himself has set out to make individualized installments that directly stand out from one another, it feels like his narrative execution here missed the mark in making something memorably devastating, especially with the benefitting appeal of the Fire Tribe enacting another of the movie’s Earthly elements to inspire creativity, but instead following more of the very same beats that indirectly makes this feel like a retread of a movie that we previously experienced. On top of this, the film, at least in my opinion, suffers from the same problems of its predecessors, in which these blandly uncompelling characters don’t capture or maintain my vested interests, regardless of an execution with all of the artistic allure in the world in its favor. It’s clearly evident how underwritten and underutilized these characters are when Varang finally appears around the film’s one hour mark, in which she feels like a breath of fresh air to a foundation withered by clumsy dialogue and an overabundance of talking characters, specifically those involving Sigourney Weaver’s Kiri or Jack Champion’s Miles, and though mileage differs for respective audiences, I’ve continued to find these characters the kind of lifeless bore that makes every minute transpire with the weight of a world that is collapsing on top of me, leaving the performances working overtime towards making anything meaningful to the design of these thankless personalities, the likes of which could disappear and I probably wouldn’t even notice. Speaking of performances, while Oona Chaplin and Zoe Saldana take flight at making this ladies night, Jack Champion and regretfully Sigourney Weaver make it laughably nauseating in the most integrity compromising of circumstances, particularly as Weaver, a 76-year-old actress, is asked to portray a teenager in Pandora. Part of her incapability certainly stems from some aforementioned dialogue saturating the naturalism of the ways people talk in this fantastical world of endless imagination, especially when Cameron zeroes in on teenage slang so abrasively distracting that it frequently elicited personal laughter to scenes rooted in tragedy or tenderness, but there’s just as much incompetence from the actors that conveys each of them were entirely wrong for the casting, a fact that has followed my opinions on Champion since “The Way of Water”. Between Champion’s lack of even surface level charisma, and the lack of commitment that he gives to lines that require assurance, he serves as more of a hinderance than a benefit to the movie’s integrity, and considering so much of this movie’s material is paid to Kiri and Miles developing love story, it didn’t make the most of its meaningful minutes, with little in the way of palpable chemistry between its May-December romance, the likes of which are more disturbing the longer I think about them performing with one another.

OVERALL
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is undeniably James Cameron’s distinctly enacted vision, with immaculately immense scope and scale in the production of Pandora’s outlining, as well as imaginatively energetic action that makes the most of its weaponry and counter-cultures, but it’s unfortunately an overly indulgent and dangerously derivative sequel that doesn’t match the ambition of its predecessors. While Cameron manages to once again effortlessly immerse us for over three hours with so much environmental optimism and urgency in his togetherness messaging, this third installment feels tediously torched without the need to blaze a trail of its own to the series’ integrity, feeling broader, bolder, and even messier than its previous installments, feeling more like “Avatar 2.5”, instead of a third film in a stylistically stimulating trilogy.

My Grade: 6.5 or C