Picking up after the events of The Way of Water, Jake Sully (played again by Sam Worthington) and his family are still dealing with the death of their eldest son, with Neytiri (played again by Zoe Saldaña) falling into a depression that slowly boils into a hatred for all humans, with their adopted human son, Spider (played again by Jack Champion) bearing a brunt of that hatred. While the rest of the kids; Lo’ak (played again by Britain Dalton), Kiri (played again by Sigourney Weaver) and Tuk (played again by Trinity Jo-Li Biss) provide some comfort, humans continue to ravage Pandora, and Quaritch (played again by Stephen Lang) is still determined to capture Jake, and may have found a way to do so with the help of the hostile fire tribe of Na’vi and their leader, Varang (played by Oona Chaplin). Having taken an interest in the destructive nature of firearms, she forms an alliance with Quaritch in exchange for help in killing Sully, and now that Spider has also become a target after a near death experience (and being revived by Kiri) has mutated his genetics in a way that could allow humans to breathe on Pandora, Jake and his family will need to band together once again to stop this threat from eradicating them and the planet.
While still expecting to chart massive numbers at the box office, Avatar: Fire and Ash got hit with mixed reviews upon release, with many taking issue with the repetitive story and gargantuan length, and the lack of time away may have finally allowed people to look at this series without rose-tinted glasses. While it still houses decent ideas, a more connectable younger cast, and expectedly good visuals, this third film hasn’t learned a single lesson, with an even weaker and less structured storyline, characters who are continually wasted, and an insultingly lazy script.
While this franchise is expected to reach five films, Avatar wasn’t really a planned series, rather one that director, James Cameron, envisioned if the first film was successful (which it definitely was), so going forward, there isn’t so much an ironed out narrative, but rather a string of loose ideas being stitched together in the hopes that they’ll produce a fully formed entity. To the little credit of these sequels, they’ve had some interesting ideas that has helped flesh out this universe and slightly redeemed what originally felt like an unbearably formulaic narrative and tone, but while more expanded and less cliched, The Way of Water carried over many of the first film’s faults, and FIRE AND ASH has somehow managed to double down.
While the first two films were poorly written and contained tired plots, they at least had competent structure, whereas this third film barely has a stable foundation, desperately clinging at random scraps of old ideas to build upon rather than featuring a new baseline. Feeling like a major repeat of the last film (which in turn felt like a retread of the first), FIRE AND ASH has so little new to offer in terms of narrative, character, or even visuals, that it’s impossible to ignore its blatant poor scripting.
With Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver returning to work with Cameron on the screenplay, and Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno assisting all three with the story, no new voices in the writing team means everything about this series’ tone of voice, plot trajectory, style of dialogue, and lazily handled messaging, hasn’t changed or improved in the slightest, somehow managing to be even more disappointing than the previous two outings as it had the opportunity to shift in a fresher direction. All its new ideas don’t get fleshed out enough and are somehow battling for screentime in a movie that’s over three hours long, resulting in a final product that plants some interesting seeds and technically has some passable scene work, but is ruined by constantly recycling already shallow waters.
The direction feels more invested in the spectacle rather than in evolving the story or characters, the cast are all trying but have such poorly constructed characters that feel very one-note, and even the visuals (while still technically impressive), aren’t able to mystify because nothing feels different from past entries, it doesn’t have much of a unique footprint to showcase.
Despite being responsible for digitally inventing a new species, it doesn’t change the fact that the characters have never been interesting, especially the ones from the first movie. The Way of Water did introduce a younger generation that, while still generically written, had enough potential to at least be worth watching, but the older characters haven’t been given the same grace. Sam Worthington is still very one-note as Jake Sully, Zoe Saldaña and the character of Neytiri is being criminally wasted and prevented from doing anything interesting, and Stephen Lang has evolved from a terrible tropey villain to a more tolerably bland version that still doesn’t feel properly figured out.
Most of the returning background roles like Cliff Curtis, Kate Winslet and CCH Pounder aren’t offensively bad, but also aren’t made that much more interesting, and any time spent with any of the human characters is absolutely terrible, with the performances and writing being so laughably cartoonish that it’s the strongest showcase of the worst this series has to offer.
The biggest disappointment of this movie is that the fire Na’vi tribe don’t get to utilize any of their potential from a storytelling or even visual perspective and are incredibly uninteresting even amongst a crowd of mediocre characterization. Essentially being the negative stereotype equivalent of Native Americans (in the way that the regular Na’vi are the more peaceful stereotype), nothing about their culture, actions or even design invite any new worldbuilding or narrative possibilities, just acting as another antagonistic threat to face, yet aren’t even able to fulfill that as they feel strangely sidelined against the more prominent and far more irritating human villains.
Despite being all over the trailers and advertising, Varang is a very undercooked villain and, despite Oona Chaplin’s captivating performance and expressions, isn’t allowed to do much beside look intimidating and occasionally do something sultry with Quaritch (which is also an interesting concept not properly investigated). Thankfully, Britan Dalton, Jack Champion and Sigourney Weaver are still interesting enough as the younger cast to at least provide some form of emotional investment in a sea of blandness, even if they also struggle with confused, unfulfilling writing.
The situation has truly become dire when even the visuals are no longer a certified positive, as while it certainly hasn’t lost step and still looks good, the lack of an update is noticeable considering the last return to the series involved an entire decade of improved technology. This wouldn’t be an issue if there was something visually different to explore, but because a majority of this film was mainly composed of ideas that couldn’t be fit into The Way of Water, a lot of the movie is spent in past locations, reuses similar wildlife and even redoes several fight sequences (the climax literally just combines how both previous films ended), and therefore has nothing that interesting to witness (even though the film’s gargantuan budget of over $400 million should’ve at least allowed for something different).
The film does at least feel like it’s worth that amount and clearly isn’t wasting any of its money as it does still feel grand in size when paired with the smooth film quality, large scale cinematography by Russell Carpenter, and musical score by Simon Franglen, but after the first sequel at least offered something new to show off, this movie is the epitome of diminishing returns.
AVATAR isn’t a series that’s recognised for its material, but rather its presentation, and every movie has cemented this ideology to the point that it seemed it would keep getting away with it, but FIRE AND ASH seems to be the tipping point where people may finally start to notice. This third film is technically worse than its two predecessors as the story is extra flimsy and the repeats are starting to become insultingly apparent, but the terrible scripting, bland characters with extremely wasted potential, and preferring grand scale imagery and conflict while only barely allowing for intimate character moments (which very rarely hit in spite of solid acting) have always persisted since the beginning, and depending on how well this movie performs, they probably won’t change course and remedy these faults any time soon. Die-hard fans and casual moviegoers will probably accept it the same way they’ve accepted the past two, but for such a giant series with such giant aspirations, imagery and opportunity, it’s funny how little they contribute when not blinded by visual flair.
