(2.5 stars)
Before we begin, please take a deep breath in and hold …
“Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the third and latest film in James Cameron’s epic series about the big blue aliens, picks up where its predecessor left off: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), mourn their oldest child, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), who died in the last major conflict with malevolent colonizing humans. Jake blames himself, as does the couple’s surviving son, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton). But they must quickly set their grief aside to handle a new threat from Jake’s returning enemy, Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), a human who died in the first film and was resuscitated in Na’vi form — but still fights for the species known to the Na’vi as the “Sky People.” Quaritch finds an ally in Varang (Oona Chaplin), leader of the Mangkwan, a tribe of ash-covered, fire-wielding Na’vi rebels enamored with the Sky People’s shiny guns.
… and release. (Now multiply the minute that passed by seven, and that’s about how long Kate Winslet held her breath underwater for the last Avatar movie. The dedication!)
If this plot sounds ludicrous to you, congratulations: You just saved yourself over three hours because, all these years later, you are still not the target audience for Cameron’s fantastical treatise on the human destruction of natural beauty and wonder, the latest installment of which he co-wrote with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, based on a story they created with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. But if you emerged from all that blather unscathed, you might as well stick around. “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” an unfocused narrative that operates as more of a Part 2 to 2022’s “The Way of Water” than it does its own film, is another visual spectacle that manages to deepen the audience’s connection to the planet our Na’vi heroes hold so dear.
While Jake and Quaritch’s long-standing feud represents a greater war between species, they technically spend much of “Fire and Ash” fighting over a human teenager named Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion). Spider, Quaritch’s biological son who admires the Na’vi so much that he also wears his hair in dreadlocks, has lived with the Sully family since the last film. Quaritch doesn’t care about Spider’s moral inclinations and tries to bring him back to the dark side. Jake resists this effort, in part because he cares for Spider but also because he worries the boy will teach humans how to thrive on Pandora, a planet with air they cannot breathe, thus bolstering the takeover.
If I’m being honest, I don’t really care about Spider. He is far less intriguing a character than his best friend, Jake and Neytiri’s adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver, voicing a child for reasons that are far too complicated to get into right now), who possesses an unusually strong connection to the Na’vi deity Eywa — essentially, Mother Earth. But Spider’s presence becomes a fascinating point of contention between Jake and Neytiri, putting a strain on their interspecies marriage. (Remember, Jake only appears to be Na’vi because his human consciousness was transferred to his avatar. Well, try to remember, anyway.)
“I hate their pink little hands. I hate the insanity in their minds,” Neytiri says of humans, lashing out in anger at her husband after realizing Quaritch’s human forces — of which Jake was once a member — will never stop coming after them. It is just as insane a line of dialogue, but Saldaña sells it. That Neytiri’s explosive anger comes through in this scene, in addition to the pained facial expression Jake sports in response, is a credit to both actors and the franchise’s always-advancing motion capture technology.
“Fire and Ash” introduces a terrific new antagonist in Varang, a nihilist whose followers are genuinely quite frightening. The Na’vi reject firearms, warning that using the Sky People’s weapons will poison your heart, which makes Varang’s stark embrace of machine guns all the more off-putting. Franchise newcomer Chaplin (the granddaughter of Charlie!) relishes Varang’s villainy, playing it up with exaggerated body movements and wide grins. The character uses violence and feminine wiles to seduce Quaritch, an odd romantic pairing that further establishes his deranged thirst for power.
Some of my previous grievances with the Avatar movies persist: There are too many plot points to recall from years ago, though I guess it makes more sense to skirt over explanation than bog down an already lengthy film with tedious expository dialogue. While the Na’vi language was developed by a professional linguist, it remains distracting that the Na’vi characters speak English with different accents — inspired by Indigenous communities from around our world — even when they’re from the same tribe.
Storylines get tangled, like vines that snap beneath the characters’ footsteps as they run through vividly rendered rainforests. A whole subplot involving Payakan, a whalelike creature who was cast out of his tulkun pod for violently avenging the death of his mother, seems to exist only to set up a dramatic fight scene later on.
But once that fateful battle finally begins — seriously, make sure you visit the bathroom before sitting in the theater — you will no longer care why or how they got there. Cameron directs the hell out of a climactic action sequence. Similar to the indelible “Titanic” shipwreck sequence, which probably won Cameron all three of his Oscars (for best picture, director and film editing), this one is expertly paced. The frenetic energy of its arrow-shooting and boat-exploding amps up anxiety, while gorgeous visuals of dusky skies and sparkling water lapping up on the shore remind you of what the Na’vi fight to protect. Cameron is such an earnest purveyor of this story that you, too, cheer for the humans’ demise (even when they answer to a general played by Edie Falco).
Have I mainlined shimmering blue Kool-Aid? Attached the neural network of my braid (or a kuru, as the Na’vi call it) to some sort of hypnotizing Pandoran life source? Perhaps. I don’t mean to suggest that we need the fourth and fifth Avatar movies Cameron previously planned. The plot simply doesn’t have enough juice.
But if he does end up making them, I expect to be riding a tulkun back to the multiplex in approximately four to five years. This alien world is too gorgeous to resist.
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains violence, bloody images, strong language and suggestive material. 195 minutes.
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