Avatar: Fire and Ash opens with a filmed statement by James Cameron and his actors warning against the dangers of artificial intelligence taking over the movies and proudly stating that no part of their film was generated with AI. Nothing that Cameron says about AI is wrong, but he’s a strange person to be delivering this particular message, given the total lack of interest in the complexities of the human psyche he has shown in his previous efforts. However, after giving the last two movies in this series a good kicking, I was surprised to find that I actually had something nice to say about this third installment. Stay tuned, loyal readers.
This chapter picks up with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family reluctantly leaving the seaside Metkayina clan because the avatar version of the deceased Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is bent on recapturing his human son Spider (Jack Champion), who can’t survive on his own because he’s unable to breathe Pandora’s air. Jake’s teenage daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) solves that problem, only to create some other ones by making Spider even more attractive to the humans as a test subject.
Honestly, the best thing that the series could do is kill off both Jake and Quaritch. Worthington has always been a one-note actor, but I’m not sure that a more accomplished star could do much with this droning character. He’s been reduced to a dad who keeps telling his kids not to do stuff, and his previous experience as a human being never comes into play as someone who’s fighting against the humans. Opposite the Australian star, Lang may be a rangier actor, but Quaritch is an even shallower character, whose belief in duty and military conquest hasn’t been changed one bit by fatherhood or anything else in the epic.
Many of the same issues from the previous Avatar films have followed the series here. The action sequences have the inhuman smoothness of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies, and Cameron loses track of his characters for ages before he picks up their thread again. This third chapter does at least introduce a great deal of red into the color palette to offset the blues from the previous two installments, which is a relief to the eyes if nothing else. Still, the 197-minute running time (which includes Cameron’s anti-AI statement) washes over you without providing anything resembling a story beat or rising and falling action. There’s just action and less action.
Hang on, though, because here comes the nice stuff I’m going to say. Quaritch makes an alliance of convenience with a Na’vi tribe called the Mangkwan clan, a.k.a. the Ash People, and they make better villains than anybody else so far in this series. Coveting the humans’ automatic firearms, the Ash People are like those native tribes who figured that they could beat their white conquerors if only they could get hold of their weapons. Under the leadership of a bloodthirsty new chief (Oona Chaplin), they’ve turned away from Pandora’s gods because those deities failed to protect them. Much like some of those aforementioned native tribes, they turn into worse versions of the imperialists. This is not only interesting in itself. It also portrays the Na’vi as something other than innocent victims of the human invasion.
If the Ash people aren’t enough to make Avatar: Fire and Ash worth recommending, they do at least offer a safety valve from the didacticism and sanctimony that infested Cameron’s previous entries in the saga. When you see as many movies as I do in a given year, you learn to appreciate small victories. Maybe when Cameron finally gives up being in charge of this series, another filmmaker who’s better at writing can take control and make it into something thoughtful as well as visceral. That would be good.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Starring Sam Worthington and Stephen Lang. Directed by James Cameron. Written by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver. Rated PG-13.
