Avatar: Fire and Ash 2025 Movie Review Trailer
It's better than the second film—bolder and more concise—and still retains its share of wonder. But it no longer feels visually unprecedented.
For 16 years, James Cameron has kept the anticipation high for the “Avatar” franchise. When a new sequel arrives, it doesn't just feel like going to the movies; it's more like anticipating a hallucinogenic trip. But can a third installment of this visually stunning psychedelia still deliver the surprise of the new? How far will it take us this time?
Director: James Cameron
Writers: James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver
The first “Avatar” (2009) dazzled us with its bright, shimmering wonder, introducing us to the alien universe of Pandora, with its jungles and floating rocks, as if through a stereoscopic viewer. It also captivated us with the promise that we were witnessing the first true images of the cinema of the future. By the time “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022) was released, that promise had lost its luster—in those 13 years, Hollywood's 3D “revolution” had faded—but the sequel still dazzled, with underwater sequences so detailed and realistic that, on the level of a virtual reality theme park attraction, the film was a hypnotic feat, even if it was becoming increasingly difficult to pretend we cared too much about the fate of Pandora and its tall, gazelle-featured humanoid inhabitants.
Arriving just three years after “The Way of Water,” “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” whose title suggests Cameron is exploring the classical elements (is “Avatar: The Apex of Air” just around the corner?), has a higher bar to clear in terms of novelty, since by now we've experienced a whole range of “Avatar” visual tricks. The new film, despite its inevitable impressive technological advancements, doesn't feel as visually groundbreaking as the previous one. However, it is a better film: bolder and more concise, with a more dramatically focused story, and it certainly has its share of wonder. This time, the 3D is presented with less ostentation.
The cascades of fire (of which there are many) don't impact us in the same way as the ocean life in the previous film. Where that immersive "Avatar" thrill is experienced is in the extraordinary action sequences, such as one in which Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his allies soar through the skies on the backs of flying griffins through the industrial structures of the military complex where the young, dreadlocked surfer, Spider (Jack Champion), is being held captive.
(His biological father is the villainous Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang in a mode of ruthless machismo). No one orchestrates action with the blend of grandeur and logistical detail that Cameron achieves. It's like watching mystical beasts from "The Lord of the Rings" fly through the settings of "Blade Runner," and the miraculous thing is that not a single moment feels artificial. It's a dizzying existential war, full of twists and turns and aerial acrobatics.
Cameron has been touting his disapproval of AI, and the screening of "Fire and Ash" I attended was preceded by a recorded video message in which the director proudly declared that not a single moment of the film was created by "generative AI," that it was the actors who gave "life and soul to each of these characters." Okay, but who are we kidding? The "Avatar" films aren't generated by AI, but like every other film franchise in history, they point to a future of screen acting that fuses the human and the synthetic. They have a lot of AI spirit, although there's no doubt that the actors' appearances and personalities shine through (as has been the case with motion capture for a long time). The story and characters of "Fire and Ash" work well, although it says a lot that the film's universe is one in which the competent Sam Worthington can seem as interesting as any other actor around him.
This time, his Jake is angry. At the end of “The Way of Water,” he had lost his eldest son, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), and he wants revenge, even though that's not the Na'vi way. Now he's arming his clan, which traditionally uses bows and arrows, with machine guns, which seems like the equivalent of the rifles that Native American tribes used to wield in certain Westerns. Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Neteyam's brother, is the one who suffers his loss the most, and his grief is the starting point of the story, which picks up a year after Jake and Neytiri have integrated into the Metkayina clan.
The conflict now revolves around Spider, Jake and Neytiri's adopted human son. Neytiri, played with great intensity by Zoe Saldaña, wants to distance him from the family (she believes he puts them in danger), and when the children are stranded in the jungle and Spider gains the ability to breathe without a mask (because his body has been invaded by Pandora's atmosphere), the situation escalates.
Cameron hasn't lost his narrative flair, although the story he's telling is starting to resemble his version of the "Star Wars" prequels. That is to say: it's fine, but do we really care? Cameron himself has a sixth sense for interrupting the sprawling chronicle of Pandora with an attack of giant squid, characters leaping between floating rocks like in the Super Mario Bros. movie, or the introduction of a new and sinister Na'vi clan: the Mangkwan, ash-skinned inhabitants of a volcano, whose leader, the enigmatic Varang (Oona Chaplin), looks like a cross between one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's cats and Marilyn Manson. She forms an alliance with Quaritch, based primarily on a rather eccentric mutual attraction. John Waters said he took so much LSD in the '60s and '70s that he had to stop because it felt like he was just repeating himself. That's a feeling that could arise with the "Avatar" films. The good news is that the saga hasn't reached that point yet... not quite.
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