As one might expect, a lot has been going on on the world of Pandora since the tragedies and triumphs of 2022’s The Way of Water. The Sully family is still working their way through the trauma of losing their son Neteyam, the renegade human child Spider is living more among the Na’vi than with the embedded human scientists, and a new faction has emerged. Avatar: Fire and Ash give us the Mangkwan (the Ash People), who reject the more holistic ethos of the Forest and Sea People — instead believing in the power of fire and subjugation — and embrace the colors black, white and red.
Their leader Varang (Oona Chaplin) livens things up considerably, because she’s a terrifying warrior, she’s an adept when it comes to skulduggery and hallucinogens, and she wants guns. (Chaplin is the film at its best — a livewire working with a much more expansive emotional palette than the rest of the cast and no need whatsoever to play fair.)
Director/co-writer James Cameron may be the only person on the planet who loves 3D more than I do. He’s been innovating the form for 16 years now, and he’s never given up on the technology (or split the difference by switching to computerized stereoscopic conversions). But if you saw Part 2 in 3D, you need to know that he’s committed to that mixed-frame-rate foolishness again, wherein establishing shots and discussions have a normal frame rate, but instances of quick movement and action beats kick into high frame rate, which is a big problem for the human brain — our brains do not process such significantly different frame rates in the same way. (When Way of Water finally surfaced on 3D Blu-ray in a consistent frame rate, it was an exponentially more enjoyable and sensible experience.)
When the film cooks, which it periodically does in the way that only a Jim Cameron epic can, it can be awesome. Though there is a sense with much of the sustained action sections that these are extended remixes of beats we hit in previous incarnations of the film. Everything is big and loud and colorful and wild and eventually overwhelming, and it works.
For all the Stürm und Drang, there are subtle pleasures to be had here. After the first instance of the Ash People swooping into battle against the sky traders, it becomes majestically clear that James Cameron’s favorite of the classic ’80s videogames has to be Joust — and if you love aerial combat and pterosaur ptrauma, you’re going to get heaps of joy.
The latest installment of the blockbuster franchise is now playing wide
For a bit there, it was between Predator: Badlands’ exploding caterpillar and the titular entity in Dust Bunny for the year’s best creature. But you should never, ever underestimate James Cameron when it comes to creatures, because Fire and Ash launches a new creeping menace directly into your heart with this film’s bullet-squids. Officially they’re called Tsyong, but they’re angry cephalopods and also kind of incarnations of Divine Wrath that launch themselves out of the water like dolphins and hit the ground crawling fast and wrecking shit. They’re like if you crossbred the crivits from V with the Ark of the Covenant, and I love them.
Here’s the thing about the Avatar films — all of them: They are epic in a way that is enhanced by their willingness to be corny. There are big archetypes to be had that have worked in maximalist cinema since the ’50s, and that’s part of why these films are the biggest movies of all time. And this is more of the same, for good and for ill.
