Avatar: Fire and Ash Review
This is still a sumptuous visual feast, but the third installment in this franchise feels so much like the second, that you can’t help but long for it to be over.
Continuing the story from the previous films, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their family cope with the grief of losing one of their own even as the conflict escalates on Pandora. Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) continues his quest for vengeance against their family, this time finding an unexpected ally in the mysterious Ash People, led by the formidable Varang (Oona Chaplin).
Fire and Ash is a movie that is much too long for its own good. The interesting thing about it is that it really is a film of two parts, and the separation of those parts makes for very much a clear distinction between the engaging and good parts of the film, and the not so hot parts.
Not so hot is apt, because it is the cooler, water-based bits of the movie that feel like such a slog. Once again, we’re exploring the same cultures and colonies as in Avatar: Way of Water. Indeed, the same villain - the Aussie-voiced actor whose arm was flipped off into the sky in the last movie reappears in one of the worst returns of all time - inhabits the big bad region, and the big whale type creatures are back too. For anyone who saw the second film, the fact that at least half of this movie isn’t just set in the same place as that film, but has largely the exact same story and battle, feels just completely wasteful.
What’s worse, is that the bits that are hot - the titular fire and ash elements of the story - work pretty well! Oona Chaplin is great as the leader of this new group, and the space they inhabit, plus the devastating history of their tribe, all sparks immediate interest. The new parts suck you in quickly, and what you get is a taste of what could have been; a new movie, with new characters juxtaposed with some of the old heroes, in a new part of this wonderful world.
Instead, we get the same stuff from the second film rehashed again. A glimpse at a better movie, but one that deftly avoids the new in favour of the old. It’s a harsh shame.
Nevertheless, this franchise continues to defy the visual expectations, and when experiencing Avatar: Fire and Ash as a visual spectacle, it is a tremendous one. This is a film that is huge in every sense of the word, and needs to be witnessed in 3D and on a big old IMAX screen. Cameron’s work at creating a lush and immersive world is unparalleled, and sustains this film even when the story jumps back from the new into the tired and done before.
