Greetings and salutations from Pandora, Patriot Nation! Today, I shall be writing about the new Avatar movie, Avatar: Fire and Ash. Let’s get started!

This is the third film in the Avatar saga. This time, there’s a new Na’vi tribe, the Ash, led by the evil Varang. So now, the conflict only escalates from here, and so does the moral focus. As you may or may not know, I do thoroughly enjoy the Avatar movies. I think the first two are visual spectacles, and James Cameron’s point of view in film is exceptional, so I’m sure you can already tell I was looking forward to this, as it was my fourth most anticipated movie of the rest of the year. I just saw it in 3D, and all I can say is… wow.

That was… a lot of film, to the point where some might say too much, but it really feels like I just watched a whole new saga of spectacle in one movie, with no intermission. It is as exhausting as it is maximalist. It’s definitely an overwhelming movie, but very exciting. It’s worth having The Way of Water in your mind, but that also puts it at a bit of a disadvantage, as this is an immediate sequel with no time jumps or “where are we now” nature like the second film, despite also recycling sequences and flashbacks from it. They’re brief, but slightly unnecessary and strange, since the story expects you to remember that film.

It offers more absolutely breathtaking special effects. The scale is grander, and there are more battles going on. They set up the final act decently abruptly, but where it counts, it just wows, and the creatures are bigger too. It has the quality of the preceding movie, effects-wise, with a bigger increase in terms of quantity. As an escalation, it acknowledges that perfection can’t be improved.

I predominantly dug this movie narratively. The Ash people are very great, and once they’re introduced, this movie feels like Apocalypto meets The Last of the Mohicans. The action scenes are absolutely phenomenal, and a lot of that action is toward the second half. All the huge sequences make this movie feel like three movies in one. This is also the first time I really felt the runtime in this franchise, but it wasn’t boring.

I personally think this should be the conclusion because this movie has lots of closure, but also stuff that can potentially be built upon if Cameron feels inclined to do it, which I’m sure he is, because these movies make bunches of money. The shortcomings are forgiven because of how great this movie looks, and for a long time, it looks this way. James Cameron is the best in the business when it comes to making money, because you can see how much this costs from the effects alone. That’s how I felt about the second, and the same goes for this one. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Avatar: Fire and Ash.

I’m gonna give Avatar: Fire and Ash a B+.