James Cameron is back with his third entry in the Avatar saga, Avatar: Fire and Ash. With a budget of $400 million and a runtime of 3 hours and 17 minutes, this film promises to expand the lore of Pandora by introducing the aggressive, volcanic “Ash People.”
Our team at TheBigBois headed to the theaters to see if Cameron could strike lightning (or un-obtainium) for a third time. The result is a film that is undoubtedly the most visually spectacular thing ever committed to screen—and simultaneously one of the most narratively exhausting and repetitive blockbusters in history.
Visuals: 11 out of 10
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical masterpiece. If The Way of Water was a nature documentary, this is a high-octane war film shot in paradise. The CGI has somehow improved, blurring the line between live-action and digital effects until they are indistinguishable. The action sequences are massive, correcting the previous film’s issue of focused skirmishes by delivering wide-scale battles where the background is just as chaotic as the foreground. If you are buying a ticket solely to treat your eyes, this film delivers in spades.
The “Fire Tribe” Bait-and-Switch
Unfortunately, the script does not match the technology. The marketing heavily sold the “Ash People”—a darker, fire-worshipping Na’vi tribe—as the central hook. In reality, they feel like a gimmick. They have significantly less screen time and cultural depth than the water tribes in the previous film, serving more as cartoonish villains of convenience than as a complex new society.
Rally the Clans… Again
The biggest sin of Fire and Ash is that it feels like Avatar 2.5. We are treading the exact same narrative ground: the humans return, the Na’vi must “rally the clans,” and we end with a big battle.
Worse, the plot relies on an infuriating cycle of kidnappings. First, Spider gets taken, then Jake, then the kids again. It feels like the writers ran out of ideas and just kept hitting the “capture” button to move characters from set piece to set piece. The tension evaporates because we know everyone has plot armor, and the villains (the RDA) have become bafflingly incompetent, failing to use their overwhelming tech advantage in any logical way.
Decorative Fruit
Ultimately, this movie is like decorative fruit: it looks delicious, but if you take a bite, it tastes like plastic. The dialogue remains clunky (“family is our fortress,” etc.), and the emotional beats often feel manipulative—particularly a subplot involving the torture of intelligent space whales, which seems designed solely to make the audience cry without earning it narratively.
We wanted to love this. We wanted the lore to deepen and the stakes to change. Instead, we got a re-skin of the previous movie with more explosions. It is undeniably entertaining as a spectacle, but as a story, the franchise is running on fumes.
| The Good | The Bad |
| Visual Perfection: The best CGI ever made. Period. The world of Pandora feels completely real. | Repetitive Story: “Rally the clans” for the third time. The plot beats are identical to the previous films. |
| Action Scale: The battles are bigger, louder, and better choreographed than Way of Water. | Kidnap Fatigue: The plot relies entirely on characters getting captured and rescued in a loop. |
| 3D Experience: Essential viewing in premium formats; the depth and immersion are unmatched. | The Ash People: A disappointment compared to the marketing; they lack depth and screen time. |
| Annoying Characters: The focus on the kids and Spider continues to drag the narrative down. |
Avatar: Fire and Ash: Avatar: Fire and Ash is a conflicting experience. It is a triumph of visual engineering that is dragged down by a lazy, repetitive script. While the action is an improvement over The Way of Water, the constant recycling of plot points and the disappointing utilization of the new "Fire Tribe" make this a slog for anyone who cares about storytelling. It is worth seeing in IMAX for the spectacle, but don't expect to remember the plot by the time you reach the parking lot. – Asmodeus