Avatar: Fire and Ash marks the third entry in the blockbuster franchise.
James Cameron retreads familiar themes and concerns.
Fatigue has set in, despite some emotionally resonant moments.
When does a wonder-infused franchise begin to crack? When James Cameron released Avatar in 2009, it bore no great narrative reinvention but flaunted the showy promise of a 3D technological leap. The Avatar projects consumed Cameron with possibilities of furthermore toying with CGI and performance capture. If you can suspend cynicism and finer details, Cameron’s sci-fi dabbling may even transport in bits and parts. Alas, on idea-level, the films remain smug to run in circles. At its center, Avatar exhumes the grand clash between the indigenous and European colonizers. Coupled with this is the inevitable ecological parable. But these Na’vi hostilities with the American military-corporation nexus don’t gather fresh insights or angles while millions are pumped out on sequels. Fire and Ash ties up the previous outing, The Way of Water (2022) than carve out audacious pathways for this sci-fi juggernaut. Be warned two more instalments still await.
Once again, the Sullys go up against Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who’s determined to nab Jake (Sam Worthington). Quaritch keeps failing only to pummel back with greater resolve and rage. Another stakeholder interrupts this cat-and-mouse game. Varana (Oona Chaplin), the tsahik of the Mangkwan clan or the Ash people, storms in as a lethal rival. A scene-stealing Chaplin spruces it all up, firing Fire and Ash through silliness and dead ends. The three collide in a violent interplay of territorialism and paternal commitment. Varana brings such a blast of ravenous, spiteful ferocity the film gets a spring in its step.
Avatar: Fire and Ash leans to be tepid, tedious and unambitious. It’s low on awe, a big step down from the preceding chapters. Cameron mounts these large-scale fights and confrontations but most end up thickly resembling earlier set-pieces. When the tulkuns roll out in spectacular force, It’s monotonous, uninviting, in spite of the copious CGI. The franchise itself skirts a lethargic redundancy, like a joke that’s been too recycled to be anymore fun and lifting. For the first time, the three-hour standard span snaps patience and delight. The frames are busy yet simultaneously devoid of thrust.
Sky and sea meld in a panoramic drama without the requisite sumptuous scale. Philosophically as well, the film retreads prior ideas in a hopeless, plodding succession. Questions around biological and chosen families, a plea for unity across races and cultures are foremost, but they have already been underlined in the first two films. It’s a stretch, though, to quantify herein a philosophical bent. To say that is to attribute more weight to the writing than it necessarily has. There’s a drab soullessness, pushed by its empty mechanics. The visuals are so industrialized you struggle to connect despite poignant clutches. This entry is too jaded to flash a new vision, one as enrapturing as even occasional sights in The Way of Water. So, when threats float, they don’t sharpen in stakes or terror. The likelihood of anything major happening to these characters is diminished by a sense of rehearsed imagination. You anticipate the plot shifts, characters’ moods, crises over how they face transformation. Sully insists on Quaritch to see through hate, propaganda and choose kindness and justice. This is constantly called on as if its reiteration will magically erase all conflict. There are hints to a reconsideration in the bad guy. Time and again, he’s asked to rethink his side-taking. However, this just slumps into repetitive scenes for Jake to dish out moralizing.
Where Cameron is most effective is in picking through shared and individual grieving. Healing is pivotal to this sequel, the critical choice between revenge and empathy. Following the tragedy that closed The Way of Water, the Sullys are haunted by Neteyam’s death. What does loss do to a family? Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) wears her son’s death like a hollowed ghost. She’s just fueled by hate for humans who ripped him away. In Spider (Jack Champion), she’s reminded of her vengeful need. She sees him as all but the enemy’s face, irrespective of his place in her family. Even if familiarity invariably seeps in, visually and thematically, Cameron operates with steady emotion. There’s a magnanimity here which is genuinely humbling and moving to witness. Families, clans and communities do whatever they can to defend their own. But this defining protective kinship is also challenged, reimagined. To fortify his race, must Jake give up Spider–thereby re-establishing difference? What point would it serve at all? It’s in this tussle around Spider where Cameron extracts the sniffles. There’s something sincere and tender here, flush with genuine contradiction, sadly lacking in the film’s otherwise manufactured swathes. Avatar: Fire and Ash scrambles through an overextended climactic battle to an embarrassingly predictable close. For a franchise that once pledged innovation, it’s showing irrevocable signs of fatigue.
