Avatar: Fire and Ash is the best cinematic experience of the year. Every time I think James Cameron’s talent and vision have reached their peak, he finds a way to raise that ceiling even higher. 

Avatar: Fire and Ash is the best cinematic experience of the year. It has been my most anticipated film since the release of Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022. Although it might have been an excruciating wait, it was worth every moment. Every time I think James Cameron’s talent and vision have reached their peak, he finds a way to raise that ceiling even higher. Fire and Ash is unrelenting and dense. Cameron is no longer holding our hand in this world, but is trusting that everything he has laid out clearly in the first two films will guide us through this third installment. Avatar: Fire and Ash is the most character-driven film of the trilogy, and Cameron expertly juggles well-developed character arcs from at least six characters while introducing the new and exciting Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash people.

Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) is the narrator for this installment. With the death of his brother Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in The Way of Water, he has now become the leader of the Sully children. The film begins with him connecting with his brother through the Spirit Tree, flying their ikran in the Hallelujah Mountains. Grief has hit the Sully family hard. Jake (Sam Worthington) is reverting back to his military background and human identity while Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) is trusting in her faith that this is the path Eywa has chosen for them. Their grieving styles are creating friction between the two of them. Lo’ak, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) spend time with the recently reunited Spider (Jack Champion), Payakan, and the rest of their Metkayina friends. They are doing as well as a grieving family can when Spider’s oxygen mask dies during the night, and Jake must save him from suffocating by switching out his pack. Neytiri has never liked Spider and has viewed him as a pest, but this is the final straw that gets Jake on her side to send him back to High Camp, where the Omatikaya and the rest of the human resistance live. When Jake announces to the family that they will be sending Spider back through the Windtraders, all the children are furious, and Spider begs to stay with them. As a compromise, Jake and Neytiri suggest taking him back together, to which everyone agrees.

Peylak (David Thewlis) is the leader of the Windtraders. He agrees to take Spider and the Sully family reluctantly, as they are a pacifistic people who do not choose sides, but they desperately need protection from the sadistic Mangkwan clan raids. After a few nights, they are attacked by the clan led by their fire-obsessed Tsahik Varang (Oona Chaplin). This is more than even great warriors like Jake and Neytiri and the Windtraders can handle. Neytiri is injured and takes a massive fall, Kiri and Lo’ak’s ikrans are killed, and the four children are separated from the adults. The kids are running away from the Ash clan and are shaken after seeing Varang cut off kurus, the braid that contains the mycelia that connects directly with Eywa, animals, and each other. Jake is left searching for his family when Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and Wainfleet (Matt Gerald) find him. Jake gets Quaritch to agree to a temporary truce when he tells him Spider won’t survive for long because his battery pack for his oxygen mask is dying. The truce ends up being for naught. In a moment of pure desperation as Spider is starting to suffocate, Kiri taps into Eywa and saves him, so now he can breathe the Pandoran air. Unfortunately, that moment of relief is quickly undermined as Varang and her followers capture the children. This is only the tip of the iceberg of the film’s plot.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is one hell of a film, to say the least. It is also the weirdest of the three. There are a few points to address that could better contextualize how to approach the film. First, Fire and Ash has the most radical science fiction of the series so far, so anyone not on board with the sci-fi aspects of the Avatar films will not be won over by Fire and Ash. The original Avatar seems like it would be the most sci-fi, but it is simply setting up the rules of Pandora and the Na’vi. The Way of Water teases where the franchise’s sci-fi tendencies might lead, but it is primarily an action film. Fire and Ash pushes past those boundaries. Kiri is confirmed to be a clone of her mother, created through the will of Eywa. She has powers beyond what any regular Na’vi has the ability to do. She easily became acquainted with the Metkayina way of life, can control plants and animals, and she literally turned Spider into a Na’vi in every way but appearance. At the end of the film, when she is tapped into the Spirit Tree and begging Eywa for help, we get a tease of what the goddess herself looks like, which is beyond what I ever thought Cameron would do. Also, it’s one thing for Spider to be saved so that he can breathe Pandoran air, but for him to be growing a kuru is a far-out choice. Cameron is fearless in pushing his audience. Nothing is too weird, especially when there’s so much thematic resonance to every decision. He’s not making these storytelling choices just for fun, but with a specific intention in mind, specifically Spider’s assimilation into the Na’vi people.

Second, there’s been some chatter that Fire and Ash is a retread, which is a bizarre criticism. It was always established that The Way of Water and Fire and Ash are companion pieces to one another. Audiences were spoiled by the gap between the previous Avatar releases which caused them to expect major technological advancements and radical new environments with each entry, and claiming that this film lacks that is unfair criticism. Fire and Ash is the first direct continuation, and based on how The Way of Water ended, it had to take place just weeks after the second film. It would have been a disservice to the characters to skip over the Sully family grieving Neteyam’s death with a time jump or have them move away from the Metkayina to a different, new location after establishing that they won’t run and hide anymore. The Way of Water ends with Jake saying, “This is where we make our stand.” Cameron is playing in the sandbox he established, and in fact, this film is structurally different from the other two. Both Avatar and The Way of Water have backstory and exposition to teach the audience. Next, our characters are thrown into a new environment, and most of the second act is them learning about the new world, and then there is a big final battle to defend the new beloved environment. This time around, there’s no long section of playing in the new place and learning the rules. Every major aspect of Fire and Ash is something that has been established on some level before, and because we have the shorthand knowledge of it, Cameron can just let the story fly. For example, we know the meaning of Toruk Makto, why the Tulkun believe in never using violence, and what the family dynamics are and why they are at their most tense in Fire and Ash. All the groundwork has been set up in Avatar and The Way of Water. If you view Fire and Ash through that prism, any silly critiques of a retread should fall to the wayside.

One of the best things about Cameron is how much he trusts his audience. The themes and character work of Avatar: Fire and Ash are the most mature of the series, and much of the action is determined by character arcs. Starting with Jake and Neytiri, as I previously mentioned, their styles of grieving are totally opposite. Neytiri runs to religion while Jake gathers and builds weapons. Neytiri disagrees with what Jake is doing, but because he’s her partner, she doesn’t publicly disagree with him, especially considering he’s Toruk Makto. Neytiri, who has tolerated Spider in the past and used him as bait in the final battle in The Way of Water against Quaritch, has built up a resentment towards him that has turned to hate. She wanted to kill him before, but when he is given the ability to breathe and connect with Eywa, it is only heightened because he poses a danger to them in the hands of the RDA. Jake sees himself in Spider and empathizes with him. He has to remind her that he was human too, and that he is one on the inside. They fight about Neytiri’s hatred of humans, and she admits the very dark truth that she is embarrassed by the human aspects of their children. There are real-world parallels to the feelings the two of them are having. Their arguments are some of the most fascinating and thrilling parts of the film, even though there is no action. Despite their frustration, their love for each other always comes first. Neytiri is the one who saves Jake from containment. She is also the one to stop Jake from sacrificing Spider. When Spider actively puts himself in harm’s way to save Jake from being killed, for the first time, Neytiri can see just what kind of person Spider is. When she rinsed off the Mangkwan red paint, she saw Spider’s death as his blood on her hands, and it terrified her. Neytiri was awesome in The Way of Water, but Fire and Ash is her movie, and she has the best arc.

Even beyond the intensity of Jake and Neytiri’s relationship in this film, there are so many other great moments they have individually. Despite Jake identifying with the human part of himself more in this film, he never stops trying to convince Quaritch of the beauty of Pandora and how Quaritch shouldn’t let the humans’ decisions be what determines his future. Also, Jake blames Lo’ak for Neteyam’s death, which, if he weren’t grieving, he would know how terrible and inaccurate that is. He butts heads with Lo’ak so much because he is literally his mirror. He fully entrusts Lo’ak to be his number two by the final act of the film, and it’s a beautiful moment. As for Neytiri, she struggles with her identity as a warrior when her injury prevents her from shooting the arrows properly. Who is she if she cannot protect her family? Also, she never fully gets along with Ronal (Kate Winslet), which I find to be a great choice. Women don’t have to be best friends to support each other, and women don’t automatically get along with each other. This felt very true to life.

Quaritch could’ve easily been a one-and-done villain, but where Cameron has taken the character is way more interesting than I could have predicted. Avatar Quaritch enjoys being tall, strong, and riding his ikran in the same way the human Quaritch enjoyed fighting and dominating his enemies. He loves power and strength, but doesn’t really care about the beauty of Pandora and their deity that the Na’vi love, which is why Varang is so intriguing. It was a stroke of brilliance to give Quaritch his own evil love story. Not only is it fun to watch, but it also shows where he actually stands in relation to the Na’vi and humanity. He’s upset that General Ardmore (Edie Falco) called them savages despite slinging around that word easily in the first film. His alliance with the RDA is less about his desire to have humans come to the planet than his ego and his stance against Jake. He’s so upset that he’s tempted to abandon the life to which he has gripped so tightly that his choice to jump into the flux vortex and the fire at the end of the film is the only correct decision he could have made. He easily could’ve been a one-dimensional character. Now he is turning into an anti-hero of sorts, which is just fun territory to explore. Cameron never takes his eyes off the fact that the true evil will always be colonialists and corporations.

Varang is a perfect foil to Neytiri. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in Eywa; she rebukes her. You can physically see it as the Ash clan has no bioluminescence on their bodies, as they scarred them over.  She claims that the reliance on their faith made her clan weak when a volcano destroyed their home. They live in the ash of their hometree. It was her own self-determination and fierce attitude that pulled her people from the brink of desperation. Because she doesn’t value Eywa, she doesn’t care about the great balance. While different Na’vi clans may be skeptical of each other, they typically have each other’s backs in the fights that matter, but Varang has no such loyalty. Power and domination are what she desires, and Quaritch is the perfect match for her. When she first sees the bullets that kill one of her clan, the same sound plays when Quaritch saw Neytiri’s arrows in The Way of Water. Also, Fire and Ash was the most erotic of the three films, largely due to their relationship. Cameron is great at creating badass female characters, and Varang is an amazing creation. I hope to see her again in Avatar 4, hopefully with even more to do. I can’t help but wonder if she will realize the RDA would exterminate all the Na’vi if that means they can settle on Pandora. As much as she loves destruction, she has a sense of self-preservation, as we can see when Kiri attacks her in the third act.

Part of the mature themes of the film includes Lo’ak’s near suicide attempt. I couldn’t believe Cameron went that far to show Lo’ak’s emotional turmoil, but it was needed and effective, as well as Kiri and Tsireya (Bailey Bass) coming to tell him how much they love him. We might love Jake Sully, but he is by no means a perfect father. Jake’s failure to stand up for Lo’ak and his blaming his son for Neteyam’s death is heartbreaking. He already feels guilty enough. Lo’ak’s journey in this movie is about his entrance into adulthood. In The Way of Water, and even into the beginning of Fire and Ash, he looked up to his father and wanted to be just like him. Throughout the film, he begins to disengage from getting his father’s approval. He starts to connect more with Payakan in the wake of Neteyam’s passing. When Jake refuses to stand up for him at the Tulkun council, this is the final breaking point. His journey to find Payakan solidifies his moral convictions. He will not be shamed or silenced anymore. Without Lo’ak’s intrusion, the final battle would’ve been a swift victory for the RDA, and the Tulkun would’ve been wiped from existence. Jake entrusts Lo’ak to protect the family in the battle, and Neytiri tells him that if they die, he is to take Spider and his sisters far away to safety. He protected them for a long time as they ran from the Mangkwan clan, and even Kiri, as strong and powerful as she is, looked to him to lead. He’s much more confident by the end of Fire and Ash.

When Cameron said that Spider was the glue of the Avatar sequels, he wasn’t joking. Spider took a front seat in this film. Not only does he link Jake and Quaritch together beyond their shared history, but he is also how Cameron is trying to explore the kind of relationship humanity should have with nature and other cultures. If we treat it/them right, we will benefit a hundred times over. In The Way of Water, it made so much sense to separate him from the Sullys and reconnect him with his father. In this film, I figured his role would solely be about gaining acceptance from Neytiri now that he could participate as a Na’vi, but the added tension of the RDA wanting to study him and recreate his ability to breathe added so much more tension to the consequences of this film. He is wise for his years, and he understands on some level why Neytiri initially hates him and why Jake almost sacrificed him. Also, Spider can be a make-or-break character for many people because he’s so goofy, but I find this to be a good thing. So often, teenagers in film and TV are way more mature than they would actually be, even in intense circumstances. Cameron never lets it fall by the wayside that Spider and the Sullys are children first.

As for Kiri, her desperate attempts to connect with Eywa and receiving no clear answer drives her to come into her own power. She is the one who commands the squid-like creatures to destroy the RDA and kill all the Sky people (rightfully so). There is a big question behind Eywa’s intentions. Is Eywa purposefully being avoidant to push Kiri to her limits, or can Kiri not connect because she is Eywa? Having a sneak peek at the goddess was unreal. I’m not sure if I want more answers about Eywa or have her kept shrouded in mystery, but I trust Cameron to do what’s right (and coolest). One mystery that was answered for Kiri was about who her father was, or more accurately, the lack thereof. The reveal that she is an exact genetic copy of Grace’s avatar is something I suspected. Despite having her answer, she is upset because that makes her even more of a freak. She and Spider’s feeling of being outsiders connected them and built the foundation for their romantic relationship. I never knew if Cameron would actually go there, but I’m so glad he did. There’s also some humor to the fact that the daughter of Eywa and the son of a non-believer like Quaritch would fall in love with each other.

Of the many reasons we should applaud Cameron, one of them has to be how sensual and romance-driven Fire and Ash is. In today’s world, where the younger generation is against scenes of a sexual nature, Cameron is pushing the boundaries in many ways. For Jake and Neytiri, we are seeing what happens after happily ever after, when true love is tested in the toughest of ways. Do they let their differences divide them, or do they continue to choose each other time and time again? Quaritch and Varang’s relationship is erotic and electric. They found someone who sees the darkest sides of each other, and they love it. Quaritch literally falls head over tail for her to the point where he is wearing Mangkwan war paint to the RDA meeting, a big moment that identifies to us where his true loyalties lie. Both Spider and Kiri and Lo’ak and Tsireya are experiencing young love, so pure and innocent. Spider and Kiri have years of friendship as a base, which is why we see them kiss in this film, as they know each other fully. Lo’ak and Tsireya have immediate chemistry in The Way of Water that’s built upon here. She is willing to risk her position in the Metkayina clan and with her parents to stand with Lo’ak and what is right for the Tulkun. It’s beautiful for us to watch their love grow slowly but surely.

Of all the brilliant performances across the trilogy thus far, Worthington and Saldaña are at their very best in Fire and Ash. They have so much good material to work with based on what their characters are experiencing. There are several moments where Jake is doing his damndest to appeal to Quaritch’s humanity with such quiet confidence and assurance of the truth to the words he’s saying, which Worthington absolutely nails. Saldaña is at her best when she is admitting how much she despises the pink skins. We’ve heard her be angry, but the level of malice and desperation in her voice was otherworldly. Apart from our leads, Chaplin as Varang gives a movie-star performance. When she is on screen, she is all you can look at. There is a distinct physicality to her facial movements and body language that truly feels alien. I also want to shout out Jack Champion, who has the hardest job of all the actors, and everyone should look into the process of bringing Spider into Pandora. Spider is a movie-making marvel, and Jack’s willingness to be so comfortable with everything he is asked to do should be admired.

It’s par for the course for a Cameron film to have excellent craftwork. Most obviously, the visual effects are just leagues better than anything anyone else has ever done (apart from himself). One aspect that we take for granted at this point is the cinematography. Avatar won the Oscar for Cinematography, and because technology has only improved since then, The Way of Water and Fire and Ash are even more beautiful. Unfortunately, the Academy probably thinks “been there, done that,” which is a disappointing perspective. Other standouts include the costume design, which has always been undersung. Varang’s outfit is the major new inclusion that looks amazing, but even across all the films, the combination of function and personality of the Na’vi outfits has always been beautiful. Also, I had the chance to watch Fire and Ash a second time, which confirmed just how quickly the film moves, considering the runtime is well over three hours. Every scene was so interesting and added layers to the story, which kept me engaged throughout. And with such an expansive story, highly-skilled editors are necessary to connect it all together well so that the audience can follow it with ease. Finally, Simon Franglen’s score once again blew me away. He deserved an Oscar nomination for The Way of Water, and he got to expand his brilliant work in Fire and Ash. The Avatar trilogy wouldn’t be as special as it is without perfect scores to accompany the films.

I love Cameron. His career is a series of gutsy swings, but nobody has vision as he does. He continues to prove the naysayers wrong time and time again. If fire is the only pure thing in Varang’s world, then the Avatar films are the only pure blockbuster filmmaking in the film industry today. An original film series on a scale this large and this well planned out is an anomaly. The Avatar films have multiple genres all wrapped up into one, including action, science fiction, family drama, romance, and even moments of comedy, all while speaking to real-world parallels. Cameron is not subtle about his beliefs, and he so often falls on the right side of history.

People with pure intentions and a true love for the world are able to join the Na’vi, but when evil people destroy the environment and terrorize the indigenous communities, all for sick, capitalistic gain, it is the morally right thing to do to defeat them. There is no concern about sinking down to their level, because that’s impossible. Fighting against your oppressors for what’s right and just is a necessity. The film without a doubt expects a lot of its audience, but Avatar: Fire and Ash has everything anyone could want from a film if you come with open eyes and are willing to see.

Grade: A+

Oscars Prospects:
Likely: Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, Best Production Design
Should Be Considered: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Lead Actor (Sam Worthington), Best Lead Actress (Zoë Saldaña), Best Supporting Actress (Oona Chaplin), Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Score, Best Original Song

Where to Watch: In Theaters