The bucket of popcorn I carried into the cinema – the one I’d been looking forward to demolishing – sat untouched for most of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Not because I wasn’t hungry, but because I simply forgot it was there.
This movie keeps your eyes glued to the screen.
That said, this is a long movie – and you feel it.
At close to three and a half hours, Fire and Ash rarely if ever drifts into boredom, but it also doesn’t pretend to be lean. The runtime is noticeable. You shift in your seat. You’re aware you’ve been there a while.
Visually, the film is exactly what you expect from James Cameron: long, but impressive.
From the opening moments, Fire and Ash pulls you back into the made-up world of Pandora – a world similar to ours, but way more vibrant.
Structurally, the movie echoes the first two films closely: a new environment, escalating conflict, a familiar human threat, and a villain who feels more like a continuation than a reinvention.
Where the film becomes more interesting is in its themes.
The hunting and harvesting of a highly intelligent, whale-inspired species – targeted by humans seeking to dominate and inhabit Pandora – is a thinly veiled parallel to real-world exploitation. It’s hard to watch without thinking about humanity’s long history of justifying destruction in the name of progress.
The film also spends more time exploring family dynamics, refugees, racism and mixed-race identity. Characters who exist between worlds – culturally and biologically – are forced to confront where they belong, and who gets to decide that.
James Cameron has a knack for making you feel something for characters you’re supposed to oppose, though by this point in the franchise, those emotional turns are easier to anticipate.
Avatar: Fire and Ash asks big questions, delivers enormous action sequences, and largely repeats a formula we know well.
By the time the credits roll, the popcorn is still there – not untouched because the film was flawless, but because it held my attention, even when I knew exactly where it was heading.
