"Avatar: Fire and Ash"

 ☆☆☆☆½ 

I walked into Avatar: Fire and Ash as a tired, jaded adult and walked out a 10-year-old kid, having spent three hours staring at a giant screen, watching impossible scenes with rapt attention, gasping at unexpected plot twists, and bursting into spontaneous applause when the good guys won the day.

Which isn't to say that the good guys decisively win the day in James Cameron's third Avatar movie, but in the unlikely event that this proves to be the final Avatar film, let it be said it ends on a satisfyingly high note. It reminded me of the ending of Return of the Jedi, in which the story seems to come to a conclusion, though you know in your heart of hearts that can't be possible.

There are many things in Avatar: Fire and Ash that can't be possible, and the staggering vision of Cameron and his team of performers, designers, animators, artists and technicians of every type makes them all feel real. Your brain knows that what you're watching has been generated with the help of very powerful computers, but Avatar: Fire and Ash is the apotheosis of what movies have been doing from the very beginning: convincing us that what we're seeing up there on the screen is happening as we watch.

If the first Avatar in 2009 became the most successful movie of all time because of its novelty, and 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water simply drew people back for another look — which is what some cynical minds will try to get you to believe — then Avatar: Fire and Ash really has its work cut out for it. This movie can no longer succeed or fail based solely on technological prowess, it has to win its audience over the old-fashioned way, through story, characters and emotion.

It works. Does it ever.

If Avatar: Fire and Ash has a primary fault it's not that it's running time of 3 hours, 15 minutes, is too long, it's that it might be too short — that there are moments that feel rushed, sometimes even choppy, when the movie is trying to pack too many of its multiple storylines into too little screen time. There's probably a version of Avatar: Fire and Ash that could be split into two "regular-sized" movies, and I'd like to see that version. After this movie, I'd like to see any new Avatar adventure.

In recent years, it seems Avatar has divided moviegoers along essentially the same lines as religion: You either believe in these films wholly, you don't believe in them at all, or you're an agnostic who sits somewhere in the middle, willing to watch if the opportunity presents itself. Avatar: Fire and Ash will do nothing to convert the non-believers, and will more than satisfy the true believers. And those in the middle? Who may have seen an Avatar film but don't take a strong stance one way or another? I'll wager this film will convert them into the faithful.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is narrated by Lo'ak, son of Jake Sully, the former Marine who, after seeing what armed forces were doing to the mesmerizing planet of Pandora in the name of corporate colonization made a choice to trade in his "avatar" of the 10-foot-tall, golden-eyed humanoids and become a Na'vi (native Pandoran) himself. The choice made rather bad enemies out of Col. Miles Quarritch and the Resources Development Administration, which has a goal of exploiting every possible part of Pandora.

Sully led a successful assault against RDA forces in the first film, but like the Empire in Star Wars or Voldemort in Harry Potter, the RDA just won't stop. There are billions and billions to be made off of the miracles in Pandora. Having fled their forest home in the first film, Jake and his Na'vi wife Neytiri and their children fled in the second film, The Way of Water, to a place that seemed safe from the RDA. But it turned out RDA also wanted to harvest Tulkan, or Pandoran whales, for a substance they secrete.

They'd stop at nothing to get it, and Sully will stop at nothing to stop the RDA, and with that core conflict Cameron has set up something like Luke against the Empire in the Star Wars movies. To some degree, it's always going to be the same story, over and over.

But to a larger degree, this is a vast and complicated world Cameron has created, and it presents extraordinary opportunities for storytelling. In Fire and Ash, Quarritch (now inhabiting a Pandoran body himself) crosses paths with the Mangkwan Clan, or "Ash People," native Pandorans who reject the ecology-based philosophies of oneness with nature that the Na'vi worship. The Ash People are led by the dangerous and power-hungry Varang, who agrees to join forces with Quarritch to bring Sully — a terrorist traitor to the human cause, according to the RDA — to justice. And, by so doing, to rule over the many clans of Pandora.

It's a simple story, rendered complex by multiple storylines, each with enough to power their own films. Jake's daughter Kiri is growing more connected to the planet and to Ewa, the spiritual entity who guides all living things. Lo'ak is testing out his own independence in a very big way. Adopted son Spider — who, it turns out, is actually Quarritch's son — begins coming into his own in surprising fashion, while Jake's wife Neytiri is none too pleased with the fight against the RDA that has left her and her family exiled from their forest home.

And this is just the barest outline of a story that at times plays out on three or four different stages all at once, with sure-handed editing never keeping one away for long. It all leads up to one spectacular battle, which in turn leads to another spectacular battle and, let's face it, spectacular battles are one of the biggest reasons we're here. Avatar: Fire and Ash delivers on that front ... and then some.

At its core, the movie never loses sight of its central questions regarding colonization and exploitation of natural resources. It's an environmental movie though and through, pro-ecology, anti-pollution, anti-military, virulenty anti-colonialist. But it's as much a political movie as Star Wars or Star Trek ever was: that is, the messages are there if you want to take them, and if not it's just a hell of a good time.

From visuals to story to acting to music and intensity, Avatar: Fire and Ash outshines its very strong predecessors. This is a movie to give yourself over to — and most people will. It will reward them. It's a dazzling, crowd-pleasing movie, the kind of afternoon or evening at the theater that has you sitting at attention (yes, on the edge of your seat), gripping the arm of the person you came with or ripping up napkins as you watch. Cameron is a master of cross-cutting, of telling multiple stories at once and making sure (mostly) that we're never confused where we are. Avatar: Fire and Ash has so many balls in the air by the time its climax rolls around that it's almost unbelievable none of them get dropped — cinematically speaking, Cameron is one hell of a juggler.

At times, though, scenes seem to be cut too soon, a few moments seem unclear and never fully explained, and the action can, in a few moments, seem a little disjointed. It's hard to imagine it being any other way — this movie is truly overstuffed with ideas and plot points, so it's no surprise a few don't line up. But that's such a minor quibble about a film that is as good a time at the cinema as movies can be.

To my mind, it's the best of the Avatar films so far, even if it lacks the novelty of the first. No appeal has worn off, but Avatar has settled into its world and its story in the best possible way. At least, if you ask me. Like I said, I've become one of the faithful. I believe in these movies, and I don't care who knows it. But if you aren't one of those people, prepare to come away nonplussed — Avatar: Fire and Ash is, in some ways, more of the same. Gloriously so. We return to the world of Pandora to be astounded, to be excited, and sometimes (with increasing frequency) to be genuinely moved. Or, in my case, to feel like a kid again.

On all those counts, Avatar: Fire and Ash succeeds ... spectacularly.

Viewed December 20, 2025 — AMC Burbank 16

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