Avatar: Fuego y Cenizas

I had a good time with this, but make no mistake: this is just the same movie as the sequel with some slight variation. Again, we have Quaritch as the bad guy playing cat and mouse with Jake. Again, we spend a majority of the movie following a subplot about harvesting a precious liquid from whales (or whatever you call them), which seems like it's tacked on to bring the movie to the 3 hour runtime for no good reason (an Avatar tradition at this point). Again, the finale involves the same characters battling it out in the same circumstances with a frustrating lack of resolution. The first two acts introduced some more darkness and stronger emotional beats than either of the first two movies, and the addition of the Ash people was an interesting take to finally see the bad side of Navi. But the third act just phones it in and goes for the familiar route.

I'm probably being generous with a 7. The visuals are stunning, as expected, and the action isn't necessarily bad - it's just nothing we haven't seen before.

16 years ago, I was visually impressed by James Cameron's Avatar and it was my first 3D movie in the theatre. The movie also had a very old school kind of emotional drama in it. 3 years ago when I watched Avatar: Way of Water, I was stunned by the amazing visuals in IMAX 3D. Hands down, it was my best IMAX 3D experience. But, I walked out of the theatre with an incomplete feeling because of the unconvincing story and screenplay. I was thinking maybe the third part is going to show us something very new and blow our minds again. After watching Avatar: Fire and Ash my expectations were crushed and how.

When it comes to the technology and all the visual elements in the film, James Cameron hits the home run again. There are some new kinds of action sequences in the first half of this very long movie. But somewhere in the middle the movie halts and goes back to all the sides preparing for the 'big war' again and that's where the movie just starts to feel very repetitive. If you are asked to randomly watch the climax action sequences of this film and the way of water, there are very few differences to notice. Seeing the title of the movie most of us expected a new world to be introduced like The Way of Water but there is not much new in terms of world building. There is nothing much new to the storyline as well with the movie revolving around bad human vs good alien concept. If you think about both this and the previous movie together, it is just about humans coming for resources attacking the Na'vi and the wildlife with barely any changes. The first 90 mins of the movie is very crisp and interesting but after that the movie becomes a difficult watch and also very much predictable. The only saving grace for the movie is its visual effects. The effect when the characters are immersed in water is something you'd only see and experience in a good IMAX theatre.

The other major drawback of this film is its character arc. Apart from one or two characters, almost every character has the same arc in every film. Jake Sully and Colonel Quaritch's battle almost seems like Tom and Jerry at this point. The movie also takes it to an almost funny/friendly side and brings it back to the serious arc without any major reason to do so. While Kiri's character does some interesting stuff in this film, there is a major pay off moment that doesn't feel like one because of how it is portrayed. I was able to think of at least 2 different ways to portray that scene at the spot. Oona Chaplin as Varang is the only stand out performance of this film and her character design is also near perfect. I don't really have a lot to write about other performances and especially that of Jack Champion's Spyder (you can make the assumption).

Avatar: Fire and Ash is definitely a significant milestone for James Cameron in the visual representation of cinema. But it makes you wonder how many of these fantasy rides you want to continue going to if all makes you feel the same at the end.

The movie dazzles with breathtaking action sequences and visuals that are truly a joy to watch - every battle and landscape feels alive on the big screen. Yet, the story leans too heavily into melodrama. Nyetri seems caught in tears almost every time, which makes the emotional beats feel repetitive rather than powerful. Sully, once decisive and commanding, now comes across softer and overly dramatic in his choices, which slows the momentum. Tashik of the Ash Clan, who looked so promising in the trailer, doesn't deliver the same impact in the actual film, leaving his presence underwhelming.

Compared to the earlier parts of the saga, this installment feels weaker and may earn lower ratings. Still, as a cinematic experience, it had its moments - the visuals and action carried the weight, and sharing the first movie date with my wife made it memorable. Overall, I enjoyed it, but my expectations were set much higher than what the film delivered.

Seriously, I liked Avatar The Way of the Water, but after Fire and Ash it's easy to think that the sequels shouldn't have been made. There's no history, it's literally empty, it's the same history over again but this time with PS6 graphics. The characters literally are making jokes about the script pretty Deadpool-like. Some situations are very much Scooby-Dooed and you will constantly fight your brain because some situations are just too much stupid to be exposed in a 3 hour movie. The real magic in this sequel is how James Cameron achieved to not develop a single character in 3 plus hours.

If you've seen the first two installments, the third is unlikely to surprise you. What we get once again is flawless, mesmerizing visuals stretched across nearly three hours of screen time, accompanied by familiar characters, predictable dramaturgy, and a storyline reduced to almost primitive straightforwardness.

Yes, the film still boasts a strong, star-studded cast. And yes, the director remains one of the most influential visionaries in the history of cinema. However, there is a lingering sense that Cameron is operating on inertia here: there is little genuine novelty, no truly unexpected midpoint turn, and no tightly constructed narrative twist. The story unfolds along tracks that are easy to anticipate.

As a result, the film becomes an attraction of visual perfection rather than a true dramatic breakthrough. One can't shake the feeling that the franchise is being deliberately stretched indefinitely, relying almost exclusively on technological superiority.

Conclusion: I would recommend this film primarily to devoted Avatar fans and lovers of visually driven cinema who are content to spend three hours simply admiring Pandora and the sheer scale of Cameron's craftsmanship. For everyone else, unfortunately, it's something they've already seen in the previous two films.