Avatar– Fire and Ash

Last updated on: January 2, 2026 at 1:35 am by Ben Witherington

Avatar– Fire and Ash 2025-12-31T22:10:23-05:00 Ben Witherington

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James Cameron has made some groundbreaking movies, and some that have produced enormous blockbuster hits— such as the Avatar franchise, now up to part three. Some of the reviewers have touted this as the best of the three films, but in fact the film is definitely too long (3 hours and 18 minutes), too violent for the last whole hour, and frankly not really developing new themes, other than the new fire and ash tribe. But the overall premise is still the same— the villainous more advanced civilization trying to take over another world which is much less technologically advanced out of of desperation, having ruined their own earth. Some of the original cast, likely Sigourney Weaver barely has a cameo appearance at the end of the movie, and in general we are spending 80% of our time with the blue man (and woman) group— the Navi. These people worship the great earth mother and are connected to gigantic sea creatures, in a pantheistic kind of way. But the great Mother is more than just a life force, and you don’t want to tick her off.

The dialogue is not sparkling, but you can hardly say that about the cinematography which is spectacular. There are scenes of worlds and beings that are simply stunning. The visual stimuli alone are almost worth the hefty price of admission— well almost. This is an adult sci-fi kind of film, and is not really a whole family sort of entertainment, not least because of the violence and length. And there is always the issue of how much of what you are seeing is just CG, how much motion capture. Cameron clearly knows how to visually get your attention, but this latest film does not have the pathos, and does not create the empathy or even love, that his Titanic film did, and that in part is all because it is entirely fiction, none of the characters represent real people or beings. Even many of the Marvel characters generate more buy in and empathy, but that’s because they were loved for years as characters in comic books. There will be few films you see in the coming few years more visually stunning than Avatar: Fire and Ash. But is that enough to make it a great film— No.

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