Avatar: Fire and Ash review: Smoke, spectacle, and an endless expanding cycle

Familiar conflict, a new foe, and fine visuals help James Cameron engage audiences in the third Avatar film.

Rating: (3 / 5)

By Mayur Lookhar

How do you colonize a place where you can’t breathe its air freely? A frustrated RDA employee raises a valid point, begging the question: After two defeats, immense loss of life, and billions of dollars in destroyed infrastructure and arms, why does humanity keep chasing the Pandora dream?

Each time, the dream faces stiff resistance from Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the human-turned-Na’vi who unites Pandora’s clans to defeat humanity. Each time, the RDA’s military has him in its grasp, yet lax security and dissenting voices within RDA let him escape to fight another day. Billions spent on advanced arms and research, yet RDA seems baffled by its HR policy, surely, it’s too risky to tolerate morally conscientious employees in a company eyeing profit through colonization.

Creator James Cameron and 20th Century Studios have built an expensive world where familiar conflict drives the narrative. As Spider puts it, “It’s an endless expanding cycle”, a sentiment likely echoed by audiences welcoming Fire and Ash, the third Avatar installment.

Story

More guns and machines pursue Jake Sully and his allies, led as always by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the dead colonel revived as a recombinant in The Way of Water (2022). Quaritch finds an unexpected ally in the Mangkwan clan (Ash people), arming them with guns to advance RDA efforts in Pandora, leaving Sully, his family, the Metkayina clan, and Pandora’s creatures needing divine intervention, or Eywa’s power, to survive the formidable opposition.

Screenplay & Direction

At 197 minutes, Fire and Ash is the franchise’s longest film. The first hour feels exhaustive, with Neytiri and Jake still mourning their son’s loss while Quaritch relentlessly tracks the family; an initial encounter even lulls viewers into hoping for a Quaritch-Sully alliance against the Mangkwan clan threat, until Quaritch arms the latter for the dirty work of crushing Na’vi resistance. Just like the orangutan King Louie craving fire in The Jungle Book, Mangkwan Tsahìk Varang (Oona Chaplin) lusts for guns, thus setting the stage for an epic showdown. 

The spectacle is still top-class, but that ‘wow’ kick isn’t fresh anymore, it’s just Cameron polishing his old visual tricks, not reinventing the wheel much. Pandora feels like a familiar foreign land now: jaw-dropping as ever, but not alien enough to recapture the original’s pure discovery buzz.

Performances

Pandora’s inhabitants do have their differences, but when the planet faces threat, they unite under one force, Jake Sully. Just as good and bad humans exist, Cameron and writers Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salermo create the Mangkwan clan as the enemy within: a mountain clan scarred by volcanic eruptions, bringing the ‘ash’ to this narrative. Devastation left an indelible mark, stripping their faith in Eywa. Tsahìk Varang (Chaplin) is a cold, merciless killing machine who claims to eat captives’ hearts, yet there’s an ashen fire, a dark sensuality that draws you in. Oona Chaplin delivers a magnetic performance, stealing scenes with her chilling charisma, nothing like her illustrious grandfather Charlie Chaplin.

Well, dark thoughts plague Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), still grieving the loss of her son. This fuels her deep distrust of humans, especially Spider – though it’s odd how the Na’vi speak human language. The Varang threat gives Neytiri a formidable foe to rally against.

Having witnessed plenty of destruction, Jake Sully reins in the fire within, hoping to end the long-standing feud with Quaritch by offering surrender in exchange for no harm to his family, fellow Na’vi, or Metkayina clan. The Way of Water focused more on Sully’s children, but Fire and Ash let Sam Worthington reclaim his feisty spirit, he even has his Toruk Makto back, the creature missed from the previous film.

With attention on Spider, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), Tuk (Trinity Bliss), and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) feel somewhat underplayed. However, they still seize their heroic moments in the climax. Remember, the Sullys never quit.

Stephen Lang owns Colonel Quaritch with renewed triumph, blending menace with rare lighter beats. Edie Falco’s General Frances Ardmore underwhelms as a supposed powerhouse; the icy authority feels forced and flat.

Music / Technical Aspects

The score by Simon Franglen throbs with raw, volcanic power, fusing eerie Na’vi chants with thunderous orchestral surges that ignite Fire and Ash’s brutal showdowns, while the production design and cinematography stun – turning land, sea, and sky into vast, elemental war zones.

Final Word

Three films in, the Avatar franchise does feel repetitive. Over the years, needless wars, civilian displacements, expansionist designs masked as ‘greater good,’ and nature’s skewed balance are real-world ills the series spotlights through Pandora’s fictional lens. And with its visual splendour, the Avatar story will continue to grip the world’s imagination. The smoke has only just lit up, brace yourself for more fire in the years to come.