REVIEW: "Avatar: Fire and Ash"

James Cameron delivers everything we've come to expect from his cinematic adventures on the world he created, Pandora. And when I say everything, I mean some of it is very "meh."

Happy Wednesday, friends!

It feels like it’s been a year since my last review, rather than just the span of a few weeks.

As it is every year, the holiday season has been hectic. This one, in particular, has been further complicated by something actually good — my return to work after an extended period of not having a “day job.”

Thanks, everyone, for your patience as I work out how to rebalance the time this passion project takes up with my 9-to-5 job again. I did it before. I’ll find a way to do it again.

Enough about all that. Let’s get into what’s likely to rule the cineplexes around the world from now until the New Year: “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

Postscripts:

• Unless something drastically changes at Disney, who now owns the “Avatar” franchise following its purchase of 21st Century Fox in 2019, two more “Avatar” sequels are coming in 2029 and 2031. The film franchise currently includes:

  • “Avatar” (2009)

  • “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022)

  • “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (2025)

• Re: unremarkable narratives… I can imagine at least one fan who comes across the review and/or this post will take issue with me being relatively unimpressed by the plot-driven script holding together “Fire and Ash” and how it’s just more of what we’ve seen in the previous films. To that viewer or reader, I would sincerely and without any condescension ask: “Did any outcome you saw unfold in ‘Fire and Ash’ to any of the characters — Jake, Neytiri, Kiri, Quaritch, Lo’ak, Spider, any of them — surprise you at all?” And there’s a good argument for not going for surprises now. Cameron built the film to be a crowd-pleaser, full of reliable tropes borrowed from epic cinematic adventures spanning decades, just like he did the film’s predecessors. He gives audiences what they want, and he does it well. Why change?

• Cut for time: I can’t understate how valuable it would be for anyone who hasn’t seen “Avatar: The Way of Water” since it came out in 2022 to re-watch the film before seeing “Fire and Ash.” Yes, I know, I said that in the video, but what I cut was a very convenient and contemporary parallel. Going to see “Fire and Ash” without a “Way of Water” refresher is like going to see “Wicked: For Good” without taking the time to re-watch (or watch for the first time) “Wicked: Part One.” They aren’t stand-alone sequels, but halves of a single, lengthy story.

• Stephen Lang is awesome. I know an entire generation will probably know him best from his work in this series. For me, though, he’s been great since the early 1990’s, when I saw him play two very different roles inspired by real-life 19th-century figures from American history: the craven, cowardly Ike Clanton in “Tombstone” and the brash, flamboyant Major General George Pickett in “Gettysburg.” Also, fun fact I just learned: Lang was the first performer to play Lt. Colonel Nathan Jessup in Aaron Sorkin’s original stage production of “A Few Good Men.”