The first James Cameron film I remember seeing was Terminator 2: Judgment Day, at a drive-in with my parents in the summer of 1991 (I wouldn’t see the original film until later, thanks to a network TV broadcast that I recorded to VHS). At the time, the film’s philosophical questions about fate versus free will went right over my head, but I understood spectacle, and watching Schwarzenegger firing a shotgun (one-handed, mind you) at a semi truck barreling down on him and the teenage boy he’s trying to protect was practically a religious experience. It’s no surprise that I’ve always had a particular appreciation for Cameron, especially when you look at his filmography: Aliens. The Abyss. True Lies. Titanic. The guy is a legend, full stop, no questions asked.
Which makes it all the more curious (and frankly, a bit disappointing) that Avatar: Fire and Ash, Cameron’s third journey to the alien moon of Pandora, feels less like evolution and more like repetition. Don’t misunderstand: in terms of sheer spectacle, this is without question the most jaw-dropping cinematic experience I’ve had in recent memory, a visual achievement that puts most contemporary blockbusters to shame. But it’s also a film that spends three hours and seventeen minutes essentially replaying the greatest hits from 2022’s The Way of Water, albeit with a bigger orchestra.
The Avatar franchise has long been the subject of a peculiar discourse, one that insists these films have “no cultural impact” despite the fact that the first two installments have collectively earned over $5 billion worldwide. Granted, people don’t quote Avatar the way they quote Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, but they show up in droves to experience these films the way Cameron intends them to be experienced: on the biggest, loudest screen imaginable. And Fire and Ash makes an undeniable case for the theatrical experience, even as it spins its narrative wheels.
The film picks up shortly after the events of The Way of Water, with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his Na’vi family still reeling from the death of their eldest son Neteyam. The grief manifests differently in each family member: Jake retreats into the pragmatism that defined his previous life as a Marine, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) has become openly hostile toward humans (more on that in a moment), and middle son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) drowns in survivor’s guilt. When the family attempts to escort human foster child Spider (Jack Champion) back to the safety of the High Camp, they’re ambushed mid-journey by the Mangkwan Clan, a tribe of ash-covered, fire-worshipping Na’vi who’ve rejected the spiritual goddess Eywa.
Leading this renegade faction is Varang (Oona Chaplin), and she’s easily the most electrifying element Fire and Ash has to offer. Draped in feathers and war paint and moving with the grace of an apex predator, Chaplin brings a captivating physicality and menace to the role. She’s a genuine scene-stealer, which makes it all the more frustrating that the film relegates her to the background for much of the second half in favor of — you guessed it — our old pal Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Not that Quaritch isn’t fun; Lang remains the franchise’s most entertaining character by a considerable margin, chewing scenery with gleeful abandon as a despicable and irredeemable villain. But Varang deserved more screen time, and the burgeoning relationship between these two characters — a fascist soldier and a nihilistic warrior queen — could’ve been mined for far more dramatic potential.
The decision to elevate Spider from supporting player to major character proves less successful. Jack Champion does what he can with the material, but Spider has always felt underdeveloped, a plot device rather than a fully realized person. When the film places him in peril, which happens frequently, I found myself more concerned about how his potential demise would affect other characters, particularly Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), than I did about Spider himself. The screenplay seems to recognize this on some level, because it keeps returning to more compelling dynamics, chief among them the fraught relationship between Jake and Lo’ak.
This is the material that consistently resonated with me throughout The Way of Water, and continues to work here. The push and pull between a father with impossibly high expectations and a son desperate to prove himself worthy feels authentic, grounded in recognizable emotional truth even when surrounded by giant blue aliens and floating mountains. Lo’ak is trying to become his own man while Jake keeps trying to mold him into a reflection of himself, and the fact that Jake also blames his surviving son for his brother’s death adds a devastating layer to their interactions. But this feels like territory we’ve already explored, and it’s frustrating that the previous film seemed to resolve this tension with Jake finally telling Lo’ak “I see you,” only for Fire and Ash to reset the conflict as if that moment of connection never happened.
Neytiri’s character arc proves even more baffling. Saldaña has been a consistent highlight of the franchise, but the decision to transform Neytiri from someone who distrusts humans into someone who exhibits outright racist hostility toward them feels both unearned and unpleasant. I have no idea what Cameron or his fellow screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver are trying to say with this shift, but it feels jarring and almost completely at odds with everything we’ve learned about Neytiri over the previous films.
Speaking more broadly, the thematic territory of Fire and Ash will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen the first two installments: colonialism is bad, environmental destruction is unconscionable, and the military-industrial complex will devour everything in its path if left unchecked. Cameron’s sincerity on these topics remains undeniable, but the film doesn’t find new questions to ask or new angles to explore. It’s the same sermon, delivered with the same fervor, and while the message remains relevant (we certainly haven’t solved any of these problems in the real world), the franchise seems content to restate rather than evolve.
Where Fire and Ash absolutely excels is in its action sequences, and there are many of them. Cameron remains one of the all-time greats at staging large-scale spectacle, and the film delivers set piece after set piece with breathless intensity. This is where Cameron’s obsessive attention to detail and massive budget pay off in full, serving up eye-popping mayhem that puts virtually every other blockbuster of 2025 to shame. And then there’s the visual achievement itself, which bears repeating: Russell Carpenter’s cinematography is nothing short of miraculous. Yes, it feels odd to use the term “cinematography” when discussing a film where virtually everything onscreen is digitally rendered, but Carpenter has truly outdone himself. Every shot is immaculate, bursting with detail and vibrancy that somehow surpasses even The Way of Water, which I didn’t think was possible.
All that said, at 197 minutes, it must be acknowledged that most people are likely to feel that Fire and Ash overstays its welcome. I can’t point to specific scenes or subplots that should’ve been excised wholesale, but it certainly feels like the entire film could’ve used some tightening, little nips and tucks throughout that would’ve shaved twenty or thirty minutes from the runtime without sacrificing anything essential. We’ve been down this road before, seen these particular conflicts play out with different window dressing, and while the window dressing is gorgeous, the recycled narrative structure from The Way of Water makes the bloat more noticeable.
Cameron has long been on the record about his desire to make at least five Avatar films, though in recent interviews he’s suggested that if this one fails to set the box office aflame, it might be the end of the road for the franchise. Having now seen Fire and Ash, I find myself wondering if that might be for the best. The world of Pandora remains fascinating, rich with possibility and worthy of further exploration. But I don’t particularly need to see more of these specific characters, especially not if we’re going to keep asking the same questions and hitting the same beats. New locations, new tribes, and new conflicts would definitely pique my interest, but if the only thing we have to look forward to are more adventures with the Sully clan that don’t meaningfully advance their arcs, it might be time to close the book.
Cameron remains a singular talent, one of cinema’s most influential and innovative creators, constantly at the forefront of new technology that can create new experiences (I can’t wait to see what he does with the Billie Eilish concert film that was recently announced). But Avatar: Fire and Ash, for all its visual majesty and heart-pounding action, feels like a step sideways rather than forward. It’s a nearly three-and-a-half-hour experience that left me both exhilarated and exhausted, a technical marvel in search of a story worthy of its spectacle. But let’s be honest: even lesser Cameron is still better than most filmmakers when they’re firing on all cylinders.