Avatar 3: Fire and Ash: the same, but worse

I couldn’t go to the cinema to see it as I would have liked, fatherhood and all that, but as soon as I could, I watched it at home.

That’s the thing with these blockbusters: if you’re into them, you sink your teeth into them as soon as you can.

The result? Well, you’ll get the idea from the title, but basically I could sum up the review as:

Avatar 3 proves that the saga is starting to run out of steam.

And James Cameron has done something difficult: a spectacular film… that does not surprise. I’ll tell you why.

Plot and characters

It’s curious, but what struck me most while watching it was not the visual side, but the plot holes in the script: things are left out, many things, even though the film comfortably exceeds three hours. If it were not incoherent at times, that would not necessarily be bad.  

I’m not going to explain much more than the basic idea because, honestly, it is not necessary. It is more of an excuse telling us there is a fight with a new Na’vi clan and that our human soldier friends are involved somewhere in the mix.

That is all you need to know to watch it.

As for the characters, which has a little more substance —a little, don’t think this is Dostoevsky—, the characters’ reactions and even the dialogue fail to generate the necessary epic feeling. 

As an example, two scenes (no spoilers): the first, Jake and Spider in the forest with the knife, where both of them, especially the kid, act as if it has nothing to do with him. He doesn’t cry or show any pain. I don’t buy it.

The second is the final scene with Colonel Quaritch. His dialogue does not quite fit. It lacks punch, or something that better explains what he does next.

Neither scene is trivial; they are supposed to be turning points, but they do not feel like it.

On the positive side, we have the villain of the piece. Varang is an old-school villain. The kind from eighties and nineties thrillers. Evil, evil, evil. A real piece of work. With that face mixing madness and desire —excellent Oona Chaplin— she always makes you want her to get what she deserves once and for all. For me, the best thing in the film.

I also find Neytiri’s inner transformation positive and believable. From the initial grief to her final decision, it is an interesting arc.

Jake, the protagonist, and his son Lo’ak are more of the same. Just as flat. And as for Tuk and Kiri, despite their central role, better not even go there.

Quaritch is also more of the same, but in this case in a good way. The film becomes more interesting every time he appears on screen.

That said, although the negatives may outweigh the positives, one thing the movie has going for it is that, despite being extremely long —three hours and fifteen minutes, I repeat— it is very entertaining, and, apart from the odd scene, it does not feel long or heavy. Pure popcorn entertainment.

Visually impressive, but a little less so

It looks more like a video game than a film. For better and for worse.

This is something that already happened in the previous film and less so in the first one. I thought it was because of the variable frame rates —there are scenes shown at double the usual frame rate, forty-eight frames per second instead of the standard twenty-four— but that is not it. Or not only that.

I say this because even watching it on TV, at twenty-four fps, it still feels more like a state-of-the-art video game than a film.

Maybe it is the setting, the characters, the use of CGI… whatever it is, what you are watching is certainly not a conventional science-fiction film. If you buy into the idea, great. If not, it can pull you completely out of the story.

In any case, the whole production design —the planet’s landscapes, its skies and oceans, the plants, the animals (recycled from the previous films), the lighting…— everything is spectacular.

It is worth watching for this alone. In fact, the film is worth watching above all for this.

In fact, I watched it in 4K on TV, but I want to watch it again in 3D on the projector to see how this aspect has evolved since the previous film, which I revisited not long ago.

Watching it twice in such a short time is something only truly visually striking works manage. At least in my case.

Conclusions

I have seen critics rank this film as Cameron’s worst, only ahead of his first full-length feature, Piranha II.

And yes, I can agree. But of course, this man has quite a few masterpieces under his belt. And everything he does, for one reason or another, is worth watching.

This one is no exception, so, if you watch it with the right expectations, it will not disappoint you, especially because of its lavish visual side. However, if you expect something better than Avatar (the first one), then yes, it will disappoint you.  

In both cases, I am quite sure of it.

Technical details

Field	Detail
English title	Avatar: Fire and Ash
Original title	Avatar: Fire and Ash
Year	2025
Director	James Cameron
Screenplay	James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Story	James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, Shane Salerno
Production	James Cameron, Jon Landau
Main cast	Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, David Thewlis, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Britain Dalton, Jamie Flatters, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Brendan Cowell, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr., Kate Winslet
Runtime	3 h 15 min
Genre	Action and adventure, fantasy, science fiction
Country	United States
Original language	English
Release	December 19, 2025
Distributor	20th Century Studios / Disney
Rating	PG-13
Saga	Avatar
Installment	Third film in the franchise
Main characters	Jake Sully, Neytiri, Kiri, Lo’ak, Tuk, Spider, Quaritch, Varang
Premise	James Cameron returns to Pandora with Jake Sully, Neytiri and the Sully family in a new adventure marked by the conflict with a new Na’vi clan and the return of old threats.