Avatar: Fire and Ash Is James Cameron’s Darkest Movie Yet: Review

There are a lot of feelings in Avatar: Fire and Ash. The third movie in James Cameron’s epic blockbuster series picks up a few weeks after the second film, as human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their children continue to mourn the loss of their eldest son Neteyam, who died at the end of The Way of Water. Right from the start, Fire and Ash doesn’t spare the audience any of these characters’ grieving, and things get even more intense as the story continues.

Unlike the previous two films, Fire and Ash is narrated by Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Jake and Neytiri’s second-oldest son. But playing an arguably bigger role in the film is the very human Spider (Jack Champion), who is the biological son of Quaritch (Stephen Lang) but is much happier living amongst the Na’vi. Spider might consider the Sullys to be his true family, but as it’s not possible for him to breathe the air of Pandora, his life is dependent on all-too-fallible technology. So, after one too many scares with Spider’s respirator, Jake and Neytiri decide that he needs to go live with the humans who remain friendly to the Na’vi.

No one in the family is happy about this decision, but thinking a change of scenery might help everyone, Jake suggests the Pandora equivalent of a family road trip to take Spider to his new home. “The Pandora equivalent of a family road trip” involves the very cool airships that you might remember from the trailers. Unfortunately, the choice also kicks off a chain of events that leads to more danger than ever before for the Sully family — and Pandora in general.

Fire and Ash clocks in three hours and 17 minutes, and it definitely feels it: It’s less a film and more an entire season of a TV show, packed with new developments as it immerses you in Cameron’s world. The movie’s many goofy wonders include some stunning action sequences (once you accept the perennial tinge of eau-de-video-game-cut-scene). Also, there’s even more of our good friend Payakan the whale Tulkun. Guess what? When Payakan gets in trouble with the other whales, he has to go to (I swear to Eywa) Whale Court. You’d better believe the subtitles are still in Papyrus.

Joys like Whale Court, though, get tempered by the weight of grief and other emotions that hang over the movie. As a storyteller, Cameron’s themes often include the necessity of hope and the importance of family, but Fire and Ash features some scenes that play rough with the latter concept. Neytiri’s in love with a former human, and a parent to children with human DNA, but she’s still holding onto a lot of prejudice against the “sky people” — leading her to confront some of the worst thoughts a parent can face.

The movie also introduces a whole new big bad: While so far, all of the Na’vi tribes featured in this series have at least been vaguely sympathetic, Fire and Ash introduces the Ash People, led by the terrifying Varang (Oona Chaplin). Why is Varang so terrifying? Well, her tribe worships her to an unsettling degree, with plenty of pseudo-War Boys ready to sacrifice their lives at her word. Plus, she’s unafraid to commit an unthinkable act of violence against her own kind: Cutting off the Na’vi’s neural whip, the means by which a psychic link is made.

Varang also likes to initiate non-consensual psychic links with her foes, another vicious weapon at her disposal. It’s hardly a shock that she ends up drawn to the ever-ruthless Quaritch — and not just because of the guns happily provided by the humans still attempting to colonize Pandora, led by Edie Falco’s no-nonsense General Frances Ardmore. Yep, there are still plenty of humans around trying to destroy Pandora the same way they destroyed Earth. They’re hungrier than ever for the priceless age-defying substance contained in the brains of the Tulkun, known as “amrita.” They’re also quite eager to see Jake captured as the “terrorist” he is in their eyes.

The third act of Fire and Ash is once again structured around a massive confrontation between the humans and the wildlife of Pandora: It’s not a complete retread of what’s come before, but many elements feel largely recycled from the previous two films, albeit with some new fresh elements. (One word — sharktopus.)

Many Fire and Ash press screenings began with a featurette in which Cameron and the cast explained that no generative A.I. was used during production. Yes, the primary cast are all wearing motion capture suits to play digitally rendered characters, but don’t you dare suggest that they’re not actually acting on screen. And to the production team’s credit, there’s no struggle to hook into these characters as they process all the terrible stuff that’s happening to them, even if the CGI makes it a challenge to evaluate Sam Worthington’s performance entirely on its own merits.

It’s this essential human touch that enables Cameron and writers Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver to drag the audience into the movie’s most chilling moments. Yes, the execution defies subtlety, but subtlety has never been a defining aspect of this franchise. Everything is always loud, from the music to the visual design to the emotions. It’s an approach ensuring that Cameron’s message will be heard by even the most distracted viewer.

Cameron has ended the world twice over with The Terminator movies, depicted the true-life tragedy of the Titanic, and explored the terrors of marriage and motherhood with True Lies and Aliens. Yet by comparison, Fire and Ash finds him unafraid to dig around in the darkest corners of the human soul.

That Cameron wants to push into heavier themes at this point in his career speaks well of his ambition as a storyteller, and generates some real excitement for what might come next. Though, considering the budget of these movies… therapy might be cheaper.

Avatar: Fire and Ash blazes into theaters on Friday, December 19th. Check out the trailer below.