We’re back on Pandora, which according to multiple credible reports, still ain’t Kansas. 2022’s The Way of Water proved that James Cameron’s richly imagined and immaculately realized alien world is a showcase not merely for the dazzling technical marvel on display, but for his ruthless ability to sweep audiences up in simple melodrama. And that’s setting aside the spectacular action. The second film even managed to win over a few doubters of the original. Now, the greatest maker of modern sequels mounts his first threequel. Shot concurrently with part 2, Avatar: Fire and Ash may not have the exponential leap in VFX tech or worldbuilding of the previous movie, but it is a massive, three-hour climax that will leave the faithful with freshly melted faces.
Picking up right where The Way of Water left off, the hybrid human/Na’vi Sully family is mourning the death of eldest son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters). The marriage between Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) is fraying under the strain. Meanwhile, human teen Spider (Jack Champion) is struggling to fully integrate with the alien tribe, being that he’s still dependent on a gas mask to breath in Pandora’s toxic atmosphere, so the family reluctantly decides to take Spider back to the rebel camp where at least he can be cared for by the few other humans left behind. During a terrific sequence involving giant airships steered by massive, floating bioluminescent jellyfish, they’re ambushed by a violent and new-to-us tribe of Na’vi, the Mangkwan. Led by Varang (an outstanding Oona Chaplin), these Na’vi are unsparing, cruel, and have a specific and sinister disregard for Pandora’s deity/hivemind Eywa, whom they blame for the destruction of their village.
But wait, there’s more! During a confrontation with the Mangkwan, teenage Na’vi Kiri (Sigourney Weaver, again giving a tremendous and weird performance), who has some sort of special biological and psychic relationship to Eywa, inadvertently causes Spider to undergo a radical physiological change, causing this character — already a controversial one even among fans — to become, if not quite the narrative focus, then surely the MacGuffin of the film. Whoever controls Spider, it seems, controls Pandora, which brings Varang, the Sullys, and their old nemesis Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and the human military force the RDA into mutual conflict yet again.
There may not be a lot of discovery involved in Fire and Ash, nor are there the more immersive interludes of Way of Water, in which we luxuriate in Pandora’s environmental wonders. But there is still a metric ton of crazy shit, laced with Cameron-esque tics and obsessive recasting of indelible moments in his career. Power-loaders, capsized vessels, glowing sea life, bitches getting away, and even a romantic ritual based on explaining how a machine gun works. Do you want to see a courtroom tribunal made up of giant psychic whales? It’s here. Pandoran ayahuasca trips? Check. Dragons vs. airships vs. submarines vs. killer squid? Jim’s got you. A climactic shootout/fistfight on a jet stream of hurtling magnetic rocks careening into the sky? Also, yes.
And as usual for Cameron, it’s all breathlessly exposed in expansive and completely legible action interspersed with tender — some might say saccharine — melodrama. Unusually for him, the frequent revisiting of characters, repetition of circumstances, and sheer scale of the whole affair causes some wonky pacing issues. Some stretches feel rushed while others feel a bit leisurely. Action climax after action climax will either breed monotony in those not invested and potential exhaustion even for those fully on board. At a hair longer than the Way of Water, this one manages to actually make you feel its length. That said, once the final hour kicks over into pure action, it once again becomes clear there’s nobody with a better metronome for this stuff than Cameron. With all its overstuffed-ness, occasional loose ends, and its massive scale, he’s given his franchise its Return of the Jedi, for better and (very, very occasionally) worse. If you find the Avatars intrinsically unserious, there’s no helping you and Fire and Ash won’t change your mind. Yet it should go without saying that these movies are more than just flashy tech; Cameron is doing a thing that basically nobody has been able to do in decades: create a galvanic, rich world in which to tell his stories that’s based entirely in his imagination.
DIRECTOR: James Cameron; CAST: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet; DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Studios; IN THEATERS: December 19; RUNTIME: 3 hr. 12 min.
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