After the glacial build up to the release of The Way of Water, the three year gap between Part Two and Three feels like whiplash.
The years between the first two films’ releases have not dented their relevance - indeed, by 2022, America and the world appeared hellbent on replicating James Cameron's vision of humanity's future
And since then, things have only gotten worse.
How will Pandora reflect the world today?
Cameron has a good record with sequels - but this is the first time Cameron has attempted a third chapter.
Unlike the previous movie, I did not go back to re-watch the previous films.
Despite not re-watching the previous film, Fire and Ash carries an air of familiarity.
Unlike Way of Water, it lacks new flavour. Or to be more exact, it features new flavours, but does not make them the centrepiece.
Way of Water spent most of its time re-setting our central heroes in the new aquatic world of the coastal tribes.
I kept thinking of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome - the first act or so seems to be going in a new direction: with a new dilemma, new antagonist, and a new environment.
It feels like a slight reheating of the previous movie's story.
This is meant as a feature rather than a bug - the characters are dealing with the fallout of the previous movie, and this film does not feature the same massive jump in time as Way of Water.
This is one element that I cannot get over. I listened to the Blank Check review and the hosts put forward the idea that Way of Water and Fire and Ash were intended as one extended story, split in the middle.
I am eager to re-watch the film, but one can see a version of the story that collapses the beats of the previous film with this one.
Let us get into what what works:
Oona Chaplin's Varang is a major addition, giving a uniquely malicious energy
She is concerned with power, finding it and manipulating it to her own ends, using violence, psychology and sexuality to entrap her victims.
When she links up with Quaritch, we get a twisted mirror image of Sully and Neytiri's relationship.
She is a Na’vi perspective completely against the philosophy and way of life we have seen before - someone who is against the entire ethos the previous films have established.
Because of this, she provides Quaritch with a bridge to his new life as a Na’vi.
Their first meeting is a surreal moment as Quaritch goes from prisoner of the clan to showing Varang how to fire a gun - it is a perverse meet-cute as the two Quaritch recognises someone who shares his love for violence - especially violence against Pandora.
The other fresh element is the portrayal and design of the other Na’vi subculture, the Windtraders (props for the cuttlefish-like creatures pulling the Windtraders’ jellyfish-like dirigibles!).
But the Windtalkers are limited to one setpiece, and Varang is relegated to a second banana.
We spend a lot of time in the same locations of Way of Water, with all the same characters going through similar conflicts.
Britain Dalton’s Lo'ak - Jake and Neytiri’s second son - is still battling for respect, while his best friend, the whale-like tulkun Payakan, is still ostracised by the rest of his species.
I can accept Payakan’s need to fight for acceptance more than I can Lo'ak’s - the big catharsis of the ending of Way of Water is Jake finally accepting him.
The last major echo is the climax, which feels like a super-sized variation of the endings to both previous movies (basically more boats, Tulkuns body-slamming said boats, and a last-minute deux ex machina that is a clear lift from the original film)
However, the movie is so vast that there are elements to relish:
Following the death of his son, Jake has retreated to what he knows - he is back to being a Marine, mission and process-focused, unable to connect with his wife or his children. As with the last film, Sam Worthington has come into his own as Jake. Playing an older man who is struggling to communicate with his family, he is terrific.
Zoe Saldana, the heart and soul of the first movie, also gets more meat - the death of her son brings out a deep-set resentment toward adopted son Spider (Jack Champion). She is so good I almost took her for granted.
What foregrounded how good they were was a scene that almost falls apart because of one performance. And that is Jack Champion as human step-son Spider.
He becomes a very important character in this film, one with massive implications for the future of Pandora. And in one scene the Scullys are pushed to consider the unthinkable.
The scene works, but in spite of Champion. I do not mean to slight the actor.
As the one live-action performer in most of the scenes, Champion has the hardest job of all the actors in these movies. He has to work almost exclusively with motion-capture performers, and would have had to perform scenes twice in order to create the seamlessness between the live-action and the computer-generated components. This is a matter of logistics and human stamina.
In this important scene, it feels like he cannot get to the heavier emotions it requires.
Fire and Ash is definitely the weakest of the Avatar movies - but it is hardly a disaster.
It is the rare opportunity to see a filmmaker operate at this level with a distinctive sense of vision.
In trying to write about it, it is also weird as hell. The relationship between Varang and Quaritch is pulsing with a sexual energy that has been completely absent from these movies, and the bond between Spider and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) is so inherently strange, I am very curious to see where they go next.
I wish the ending had more of a button - as is, it is a little soft, leaving the opportunity for certain threads to be picked up. This is the one part of the movie where one feels the broader economic imperatives behind the franchise.
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