James Cameron’s keen eye for visuals and fine ear for dialogue are still on full display in Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third chapter in his sci-fi saga that sometimes seems like the never-ending story. At least two more chapters are in the books. I keep wondering if this master world builder will ever leave the planet of Pandora and start astonishing us again as he did with The Terminator, Aliens and Titanic.

 

By the slogging last third of this three-hour and 17-minute epic, I had given up all hope. If there is such a phenomenon that’s too much of a good thing, Avatar: Fire and Ash  achieves it. As you probably know, 2009’s Avatar and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water  are now certified as No. 1 and No. 3 on the list of all-time box-office hits. And both picked up Oscar nominations for Best Picture. Can Avatar: Fire and Ash  do the same? Never count out Cameron. But a numbness is seeping in that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

What was once riveting now feels rote. What once made us want more of the same now makes us eager for the shock of the new.

 

For the record, Fire and Ash  picks up right where The Way of Water left off (It’s like the two parts of Wicked.). The family of disabled marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who joined the blue-skinned Na’vi after marrying Neytiri (Oscar winner Zoe Saldaña), is grieving their eldest son, Neteyam, who died in battle against grasping humans.

 

The mourners include brother Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), baby sister Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), reincarnated adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and adopted son Spider (Jack Champion), the white kid who’s actually the bastard son of Colonel Quaritch (a dynamite Stephen Lang), now Na’vi himself but still not to be trusted.

 

Having died at the hands of the Na’vi, Quaritch and other fallen soldiers were later resurrected as Avatar “recombinants.” He seeks revenge against Jake and his family, now including his own son, Spider, who can’t breathe on Pandora without an oxygen mask. Lang is so good that he can make the clunkiest speeches work in his favour. Not so Champion’s Spider, who comes off just as annoying as he was in The Way of Water.

 

Everyone hates humans, who want to destroy the Pandora environment and the animals, especially those cute whales known as tulkun. Our new antagonists are the Na’vi Mangkwan clan (aka the Ash People since they live at the base of a volcano), led by a piece of work known as Varang. She’s a sinuous warrior whose motion-capture look is killer thanks to expert tech work and miracles, physical and vocal, from Oona Chaplin—by far the most dangerous and dazzling scene-stealer in this third chapter. Varang is a powerful sorceress who rejects the goddess Eywa and the Three Laws (don’t ask) and hooks up with the evil but flirty Quaritch to protect her starving people by any means necessary.

 

Still, all the Na’vi firepower can’t help the dialogue that sounds written by people for whom English is not even a second or third language. Actually, Cameron, to his shame, wrote it with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The most risible line right now is: “We do not suck on the breast of weakness.”

 

As ever with Cameron, the visuals come to the rescue. And they are eye-popping as the Na’vi fight on earth, sea and sky, swooping around like the 9-foot-tall feline warriors they are.  But did they have to go to extremes? The final battle feels interminable. I kept checking my clock during this movie, a clear sign of poor pacing.

 

The heart of the indestructible good ship “Avatar” is meant to go on and on like Celine Dion sang in that “Titanic” song. And it just might if the box office demands it (it’s already made $1 Billion. Fair enough.). But what was once riveting now feels rote. What once made us want more of the same now makes us eager for the shock of the new. Shy on humour and short on subtlety and soul, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is Cameron coasting on the past. As the premier blockbuster director on the planet, I just feel he’s been wasting his talents on these movies. He’s made three movies since 2009, and they’re these three Avatar movies. Yawn.  I’d love the director of stunners like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Abyss and Titanic to go back to what he does better than anyone in Hollywood: make bangers!  It’s your move, Jim. The future calls.

 

6.5/10 

Bolu
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Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.