Spectacle. There’s much to be said for spectacle in the theatrical setting. It’s bombastic nature translate impressively to a large screen, a bucket of popcorn, massive speakers blaring in your face. And while its broad nature looks like it’s an easy feat to make a ship sink, jump a car across two buildings, or have two massive armies clash on a blasted plain, in reality there are few directors who consistently are able to impress with large scale sequences. James Cameron is, of course, the king of spectacle at this point, there’s no scale too large, no spectacle too unwieldy that he cannot shoot to stun audiences into awe. His streak continues with the third entry into his original IP, Avatar: Fire and Ash.

The Avatar series is not without it’s critics. The plot of the movies is largely over the plate, vying more for special effect and action set pieces than subtle narrative decisions. The screenplays seem melodramatic to the point of soap opera, although many of the performances are among my favorite in all of sci fi. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Sigourney Weaver portrayed Kiri, a teen girl Navi using the films motion capture technology, earning herself a Joey Award Nomination. In Fire & Ash, the two leads Jake Sully and Neytiri (Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña respectively) both seem more comfortable in their roles, each putting forth their best work of the franchise, and quite possibly the best work of either of their careers if we’re being perfectly honest. Stephen Lang continues to chew scenery as the primary antagonist. But the splashiest work of Fire & Ash is done by newcomer Oona Chaplain, as Varang, leader of a tribe of Navi raiders. Her physicality in particular shines, being highlighted by the motion capture technology that turns her into a nine foot tall blue dominatrix.

Unlike The Way of Water, a perfect film by all accounts, Fire & Ash has a handful of misses. While I try not to be too hard on child actors, Jack Champion’s work as adoptive son of Neytiri and Jake Sully leaves a little to be desired. Particularly Champion’s work at what is probably the most dramatic point of the film is not quite up to the work of his scene partners Worthington and Saldaña. Plot wise it is also a little transparent that this chapter was once the back half of the second film before Cameron realized he had too much material to work with and cut it in half. The end action set piece feels like it may be a rehash of the ending of the last piece at one moment, but luckily the movie pivots just in time to make something new.

While the beats are not as tight as past entries, the background of Pandora is filled in without spending too much time on exposition. We see a human settlement for the first time in a long time. A series of brutalist structures that play against the flora and fauna of the Pandora we’ve spent so much time in. We learn more about the Tulkun, the whale pods that were introduced in the previous film. The new tribe of ash Navi are a fascinating color to add to the palette, so much so that it feels like we don’t get to spend as much time with them as we would like. And the family of Jake and Neytiri gets further fleshed out, with each member getting more than enough camera time to feel real and different from the rest. The fact that all these plates are able to keep spinning is impressive alone, even separated from the large scale stakes action scenes that James Cameron has become known for.

But it’s still the spectacle of it all that truly dazzles. No one does it like James Cameron, from Titanic, to Terminator, and now the world of Pandora with his Avatar franchise, he is simply too good at a breathtaking action sequence. It is not ever simply explosions or gunfights, those often wind up feeling boring, with low stakes and visuals we’ve seen before. Cameron invents moving parts that come crashing together in the end with a combination of practical and CGI effects that will stun even the snootiest of cinephiles. That’s what keeps making these movies worth the price of an expensive 3D IMAX admission. Seeing a military ship be capsized by an army of whales, and then sucked up into a gravity well that floats the pieces into the sky while the hero and villain battle on the wreckage as the churning shrapnel whizzes past them is literally why movies exist. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong, or devoid of joy.

4.5/5