★★½ (2½ out of 4)
James Cameron’s keen eye for visuals and tin 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 like he did with “The Terminator,” “Aliens” and “Titanic.”
By the slogging last third of this three-hour and 15 minute epic, I had given up all hope. If there is such a phenom as too much of a good thing, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” achieves it. As you probably know, 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Weight 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 it 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 Weight 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 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 he can make the clunkiest speeches work in his favor. Not so Champion, who is so surfer “bro” (the slang word is actually used) he can make you scream.
Everyone hates humans, who want to destroy the Pandora environment and the animals, especially those cutie whales known as tulkun. Also hissable, but on the inside as part of the Na’vi Mangkwan clan (aka the Ash People since they live at the base of a volcano), is a piece of work known as Varang. She’s a 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 infamously 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 main attractions in a Disney theme park determined to make you feel that you are there. But did they have to go to extremes? The final battle feels interminable. I muttered to myself, “Make it stop.”
No one listened. 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. 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 humor and short on subtlety and soul, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is Cameron coasting on the past. It’s your move, Jim. The future calls.