Directed by James Cameron — Screenplay by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver.
It’s time to return to Pandora. Avatar, James Cameron’s original otherworldly sci-fi epic franchise, is often criticized for lacking a significant cultural impact when compared to franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, DC, or The Lord of the Rings. And yet, here we are again, and audiences are already flocking to the theaters around the world to travel back to a world populated by tall blue-skinned aliens with braids that can connect with other life forms. One of the highest-grossing (and most expensive, notably) franchises remains a spectacular cinematic event with state-of-the-art visual effects and performance capture technology. The latest film in the franchise, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is equally breathtaking visually, but there are key narrative and dialogic issues, as well as a general sense of repetitiveness, that hold it back from matching the level of the previous films.
Set some time after the events depicted in Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash opens by detailing (through voice-over narration) the grieving process for the Sully family following the death of their oldest son, who was slain in the previous film. The Sully family matriarch, Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldaña), has grown more resentful of humanity and is turning inward, while her partner Jake (played by Sam Worthington), the franchise protagonist human-turned-Na’vi, is struggling to maintain a supportive relationship with his son Lo’ak (played by Britain Dalton), who feels responsible for the death of his older brother. Because of Neytiri’s growing resentment, their human adopted teenage son, known as ’Spider’ (played by Jack Champion), who is really the son of their enemy (Colonel Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang), has become a thorn in her side.
So, the parents decide, much to the frustration of the rest of the family, that it is best for the family and Spider to leave their new home with the ocean-based Metkayina tribe. To soften the blow, they agree to have the entire family accompany Spider on his journey away so that they can say a proper goodbye. But the wider Pandora is still not safe for the Sullys, who are blindsided by a sudden ambush from the aggressive fire-obsessed Na’vi tribe known as the Mangkwan, led by the dangerously manic but enchanting female leader Varang (played by Oona Chaplin). In the heat of battle, the family is separated. While the Mangkwan are searching for the Sully children, Jake encounters Quaritch, who is still desperate to take down our protagonist on behalf of the human colonizing force on Pandora.
Although its high frame rate experimentation always takes some getting used to in these films, it must be said that what Cameron puts to screen is dazzling and jaw-dropping from a visual standpoint. The world of Pandora remains one of the most well-realized alien planets that have ever been put to screen, thanks to mind-boggling attention to detail with regard to visual effects storytelling. Put simply, it doesn’t get more impressive than this when it comes to creating a whole new world. Seeing alien creatures of all kinds (both air- and water-based) come to life in their natural otherworldly habitat is a joy to behold. These films are magical rollercoaster rides to another world, thanks to an absurdly high level of artistry when it comes to this kind of world-building and storytelling from a visual standpoint. Despite the fact that this doesn’t take anywhere near as large a leap forward in technology as either the original film or The Way of Water did, Fire and Ash is extraordinary when it comes to this element of the film, which is worth the price of admission on its own.
Similarly, the action spectacle on show is of such a high caliber that only the very best large-scale action blockbuster films can keep up. Although I have some notes with regards to how closely some action beats resemble those found in the other films, there is top-notch action filmmaking to be found here, with my personal action highlight being the chaotic aerial battle between the Sully family (along with other nameless Na’vi) and the dangerous Mangkwan clan. There’s a moment here with a kamikaze-esque attack that took my breath away. Were it not for the fact that I am a quiet and courteous theatergoer, I would have definitely yelled out of sheer amazement. In addition to being a phenomenal action sequence, it also makes for an engrossing way to introduce the Mangkwan tribe, which is, arguably, the best new asset to the franchise introduced in the film. This fire-obsessed and violent tribe, which obviously inspired the film’s subtitle, is immensely watchable largely thanks to their aggressive behavior and their transfixing female leader, Varang. Oona Chaplin’s performance capture turn is of the highest quality. She immediately feels like a fully-formed character in large part thanks to how magnetic Chaplin is. Performance capture acting in the Avatar films hasn’t been this good since Zoe Saldaña shone particularly in the original film. This latest film is arguably at its best when Chaplin’s work is front and center, both through the intoxicating trippy scene she shares with Stephen Lang’s character and the menacing action beats.
Unfortunately, the second half of this 197-minute-long film basically relegates her to a supporting role with no influence on the goings on besides standing next to those calling the shots and looking menacing. In a way, it is a tale of two halves, with the first half being extremely absorbing and the second half suffering from repetitiveness and pacing issues. You’re almost always going to feel the length of a film when it is over three hours long, but I felt that this film especially struggled, which, frankly, may primarily be due to how much the film takes from the previous films. There’s a montage that, through voice-over, superficially hand-waves the steps Jake Sully has to take to convince tribes to join him (which isn’t exactly a new thing), Payakan being an ostracized ‘tulkun’ whale is still a significant focal point despite the events of the previous film, Quaritch’s character arc eventually feels annulled and he basically repeats most of the steps from the previous film (despite having a fascinating new relationship with Varang), and then, bafflingly, the final act of Fire and Ash almost replays the same action beats that The Way of Water had, in a way that reminded me a little bit of how Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut reused the ending of Superman: The Movie because Donner never got to film a new ending for his second Superman film (which he infamously never got the chance to complete). There’s a sense of ‘been there, done that’ or ‘didn’t we see this very same thing in the previous films’ that the film cannot quite escape, which can be frustrating.
Then, on top of that, the dialogic issues from the previous films have only been exacerbated this time around. This may partially be due to the fact that the film surprisingly relies a lot on Spider, played by Jack Champion, whose performance, due to his character being human, hasn’t been enhanced in the way the veteran actors’ performance capture work has. So he, as a result, can stick out like a sore thumb; the way his character is written doesn’t help, but Champion’s performance does leave something to be desired (he struggles in the wild tonal swing between overtly silly dancing and biblical allusions). But I mostly attribute it to problems with the dialogue, which feels rushed or half-baked. There are a lot of jokes that don’t really work. There are also just incidents in the film with awkward, tropey dialogue, including a Spartacus-esque solidarity scene and a moment in which Sigourney Weaver’s character basically paraphrases her most quoted line from Aliens.
No one will be surprised to find out that the visuals in James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash are sensationally strong and an example of just how far visual effect worlds and characters have come (even though it is, admittedly, not as big of a leap forward technologically speaking as with the previous efforts), and, on top of that, it does, indeed, feature breathtaking action that reminds you of the top-tier action spectacle filmmaker James Cameron has always been. But, as has been established, where this third Pandora-set flick is found lacking a bit is in the dialogue and the narrative, which isn’t just derivative and doesn’t just feel rushed, it also bafflingly repeats many of the third act beats of The Way of Water, thus leading to a relatively ineffective ending, in which one key character’s arc is again annulled and very little progress is made. As such, though there are highlights and plenty of commendable stuff to be found here, this is clearly the nadir of the film series thus far. That, notably, does not mean it is a bad film, as the highs outweigh the lows. However, even though I mostly enjoyed the film, the visual splendor doesn’t quite match the smoothness the film series previously had due to the severity of the exacerbated drawbacks.
6.9 out of 10
– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 