We need James Cameron. We need the Hollywood titan who can chaperone technological progress without betraying his creative principles. We need someone to reject generative AI, to preserve the theatrical experience, and to respect the artistry of his VFX workers. A few mocked Damien Chazelle for including the original 2009 Avatar in his canon-enforcing montage of cinema history at the end of Babylon (2022). They were fools to do so.
Yet it can also be true that, at 197 minutes long, the third film in his Avatar series may make you feel like a restless child forced to sit through an Easter sermon. Cinema’s plushier pews still start to feel a little rough on the back when Jake Sully’s (Sam Worthington) flock of Na’vi children (plus one human) are, for what feels like the hundredth time, slapping each other’s backs with a “bro!” and arguing like camp counsellors over how to save their precious planet of Pandora.
The leap in motion-capture technology between Fire and Ash and its predecessor, The Way of Water, isn’t quite as impressive – though, at this point, the ability to pick up on an actor’s micro-expressions is starting to make it look as if real people have been caked in prosthetics. And, whether in the hand-to-hand combat, the dragon-like banshees, or the return of the (fan favourite) tattooed, whale-like tulkun, there’s an endless supply of dynamic camerawork – diving shots, spinning shots, POV shots, tight close-ups in a mix between the standard 24fps and the crisper 48fps.
What, however, feels inescapable about Fire and Ash is the sense of emotional stasis. Pandora’s extraterrestrial, bioluminescent vacation spot continues to be given a meditative grace by composer Simon Franglen’s use of the original James Horner themes. But is there a story to drive here? Or is this simply a world we like to hang around in?
Supposedly, Fire and Ash is about the limits of faith: Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are wrestling with the loss of their eldest son, Neteyam, who was killed in the previous film. Neytiri leans into her commitment to Eywa, the Great Mother – as does her adoptive daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who was birthed through miraculous means by the Na’vi avatar of a human scientist, Grace Augustine (also Weaver).
Kiri finds her way to Eywa blocked. So does Fire and Ash’s new antagonist, Varang (Oona Chaplin), the shamanistic leader of the Mangkwan clan, whose home was devastated by a volcanic eruption. She believes Eywa abandoned her people, so she has instead vowed her loyalty to a different, darker kind of power: the firearms of the colonialist, human invasion force, among them the Na’vi-ified Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).
Chaplin is so slinky and strange in the role, a seductress with a blow dart full of hallucinogenic drugs and promethean desires, that she immediately emerges as the film’s standout. But it’s quite the achievement when Cameron’s script, co-written with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, continues to be so frustrating in how little it gives its actors. What should be an impassioned clash of ideals between Jake and Neytiri – loyalty to family versus loyalty to people – is muddled by the decision to have them swap perspectives purely to move the action forward; the teen characters are torn apart and brought together ad nauseam; and the climactic action sequence is largely a repeat of the previous film’s.
Varang’s own fetishistic attitude towards guns becomes irrelevant when the heroes start blasting too; Kiri’s prophetess demeanour is undercut by the impulse to hand Weaver an Aliens throwback. Fire and Ash, I’m sure, will find its place in the canon. But that doesn’t excuse its flaws.
Dir: James Cameron. Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet. Cert 12A, 197 minutes.
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ is in cinemas from 19 December
