Especially when I was younger, I didn’t really understand what made the first Avatar film (and its sequel) such a box–office sensation. I found the movie boring and put it off for years. That is until my sophomore year of high school, when I impulsively rewatched the original a few months before The Way of Water arrived. I viewed it exactly as director James Cameron intended: late at night, on Disney+, on my laptop.
Suddenly, I understood. This is a movie, not a film—an experience designed less around interpretation than immersion. Of course it’s a visual spectacle, a National Geographic documentary of Pandora, but its real goal is to place you directly inside the Na’vi perspective—mirroring the very premise of becoming an avatar. And it succeeds; the script didn’t need any more layers because the sensory experience alone was already doing the work.
That realization left me eagerly excited for the sequel. The IMAX 3D screening of The Way of Water was absolutely mesmerizing. I was so immersed that when the Sully family dove into the water for the first time, I half–expected to be splashed myself. The Way of Water features gripping sequences, beautiful aquatic environments, the tiniest bit of preachy sentiment, and a killer third act.
Having fallen in love with the first two installments in the Avatar series, I was ready for whatever else Cameron had in store for Pandora. After all, the man clearly knew how to entertain. And after watching the series’ latest entry, Fire and Ash, I’d say he still has that knack—albeit with an asterisk.
Fire and Ash is incredibly rewarding for viewers who actually do their homework and remember the events, characters, and relationships from the previous two films. The interpersonal dynamic between the Sullys, the antagonists, and those caught in between formed the emotional core of the film.
Obviously, it looks incredible, but for the first time, Cameron has made an Avatar film that actually has something going on beneath its gorgeous surface. Every line out of Colonel Quaritch’s (Stephen Lang) mouth made me less and less upset at his unjustified continued survival. His dynamic with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington)—especially as it revolves around Spider (Jack Champion), the human child caught between both sides—ended up being genuinely compelling. Throw in a prison escape, hostile Na’vi factions, and a chosen–one arc, and you have another strong entry in the Avatar series.
Another highlight of the film is Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), who remains one of the franchise’s most compelling figures. It’s not just because she’s raw and incredible to watch in combat, but because she has the most interesting dynamics in the film. Her distrust of humans still runs deep, and Fire and Ash doesn’t simplify the tension between her lived trauma and the human presence woven into her family. It plays out sharply in her relationship with Spider, and even more painfully in how she views the “human part” of her own children. Early in the film, Neytiri takes a brutal beating, and the film doesn’t brush that violence aside. Her slow recovery only intensifies her existing frustration and anger, feeding directly into her emotional state as the story moves forward. Everything she’s given to do here feels intentional, layered, and charged—which only made me wish we could spend even more time with her.
What makes Neytiri stand out most, though, is how real she feels. You can feel Zoe Saldaña in the performance—not in a way that breaks immersion, but in a way that grounds it. There’s a moment where, as the antagonists approach, the first thing we hear is Neytiri shouting for her youngest child, Tuk (Trinity Jo–Li Bliss). It’s instinctive, panicked, and deeply motherly, the kind of reaction that feels lived–in, not scripted. Fire and Ash is full of these small, thoughtful touches that kept making me think, “Of course—of course they thought of that.” Of course it takes enormous effort for a human to reload the crossbow of a ten–foot–tall Na’vi. Of course Quaritch and the leader of the fire Na’vi (Oona Chaplin) would be drawn to each other. Of course there’s at least one human who sees the mass slaughter of an intelligent alien species as morally repulsive. These details all add up—and Neytiri sits as the peak of that realism, anchoring the film’s emotional logic even when everything else is larger than life.
What Fire and Ash does especially well is trust accumulation. The film assumes viewers remember past betrayals, alliances, and emotional wounds, allowing those plot threads to shape scenes implicitly rather than explicitly—albeit with the occasional one–line recap thrown in for forgetful audience members. Cameron seems less interested here in reintroducing Pandora than in adding nuance to its story—letting divisions form among the Na’vi themselves, and letting the Sullys feel less like mythic heroes and more like a family stretched thin by perpetual war.
It would have been easy for the new entry to simply repeat the franchise’s now–familiar plot structure in a new environment: forest Na’vi in Avatar, water Na’vi in The Way of Water, and perhaps now a full pivot to fire and/or air Na’vi. But Fire and Ash isn’t just another biome swap. The new Na’vi are introduced with restraint. We learn exactly what we need to learn, spend just enough time with them to understand their role, and then move on. They serve the story without overtaking it, adding texture rather than rehashing the same cultural–tourism arc. It’s one of the film’s quieter successes—proof that Cameron understands how repetition can dull a film’s impact, even if its world is built on spectacle.
But then the film falls back into familiar patterns anyway.
The third acts of both previous Avatar films are among their strongest elements. They don’t necessarily redeem everything that comes before them, but they deliver scale, clarity, and momentum in a way that lingers. That makes Fire and Ash’s climactic battle particularly frustrating—not because it’s ineffective on its own, but because it so closely echoes The Way of Water’s finale. What once felt exhilarating now feels overly familiar, revealing the film’s biggest weakness: repetition at the moment when it most needs surprise.
Like in the previous entry, the movie’s final battle centers on Na’vi fighting humans as they attempt to harvest some goopy MacGuffin from alien space–whales. Fire and Ash attempts to invert the setting of the previous film’s ending; instead of a sinking ship, the climactic showdown takes place on a vessel levitating and being pulled toward a destabilizing magnetic field. Instead of the whales fleeing, they fight back. Each and every Sully spends the climax (honestly, the film’s entire runtime) cycling through the same three roles—hostage, hostage–taker, and hostage negotiator.
What makes the repetition more noticeable is that it’s paired with a few sloppy narrative conveniences. Jake rallies hundreds of Na’vi to his side, only for the battle’s momentum to suddenly hinge on a comparatively small group from the antagonistic fire tribe showing up later. The shift is meant to feel dramatic, but the scale never quite tracks. Even more conspicuous is how, once the tide turns, nearly every major character conveniently ends up within eye– and earshot of one another—allowing confrontations, reversals, and reunions to unfold with suspicious efficiency.
This is why the asterisk comes into focus. Cameron’s instincts for escalation haven’t really evolved. The action is still expertly staged, but the narrative geometry feels too familiar. What once played as operatic now risks feeling procedural, as if each Avatar film must check the same third–act boxes even when the characters are ready for something messier, quieter, or more unexpected.
None of this is to say that Fire and Ash isn’t a great movie. The first two hours contain moments, dialogue, and images that more than justify its existence. And maybe if The Way of Water wasn’t so fresh in audience minds, the recycled elements wouldn’t be so bothersome. Perhaps that’s the downside of a three–year gap instead of a thirteen–year one. Even on an immediate rewatch, though, the spectacle holds. The repetition shows, but the momentum carries it through.
Still, I don’t want to wait another thirteen years for Avatar 4 and 5. The world loses nothing by visiting Pandora every few years to check in on the Sullys. James Cameron is our avatar—our conduit into this world—and I’d happily keep seeing Pandora through his eyes as long as he wants to guide us there. So whenever you’re ready, Mr. Cameron, just plug the next sequel directly into my Na’vi ponytail neural link and let me dive back in. I’ll be waiting.
