Del and Mladen review ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’
All images courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” Starring Sam Worthington as Jake, Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Stephen Lang as Quaritch, Oona Chaplain as Varang and others. Directed by James Cameron. Rated PG-13. 3 hours, 17 minutes. Theatrical release.
Plot summary: Jake, Neytiri and the kids – Tuktirey, Lo’ak, Kiri, and Spider – depart the Metkayina clan to return Spider to humanity, as he cannot breathe Pandoran air. Along the way they are ambushed by the Mangkwan clan, who eventually throw in with the RDA to slaughter the whale-like Tulkuns and claim dominion over the moon and its resources. Jake and the allied clans must rally to defeat the Mangkwans and humans, or Pandora will be plundered and looted for its riches.
Spoilers: Yes.
Del’s take
Dear James Cameron,
It’s beautiful but … enough.
Nobody denies your spectacular vision, the unparalleled special effects and stunning complexity of the world you’ve created in Pandora, but …
Enough.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is an excellent movie … but. …
I’m tired.
This is the third time you’ve told this story: Noble savages frolic amid the idyll. Evil outsiders invade. Noble savages and outsiders skirmish. Then, in a final showdown, noble savages and outsiders wage all-out war. Somehow, noble savages prevail. Idyll restored. Frolicking resumes.
“Avatar,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” and now “Avatar: Fire and Ash” are essentially pastoral myths, which extol the purity and virtue of a life allied with nature, devoid of the corrupting influences of urbanization, pollution, and the refined moral essence of mankind, which is something selfish and destructive. And for the most part I agree with those tenets – until I need a dentist or want my garbage picked up. Then I’m full Team Civilization.
I want to repeat what I said earlier: “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is an excellent movie. People should see it in a theater, preferably one equipped with an IMAX screen and Dolby Atmos, not their (likely) crappy home monitor (unless you’re my friends Jim and Karen, who have a 98-inch OLED TV that looks more like a picture window than a monitor … that thing blows me away). The special effects are groundbreaking and the world-building is the most intricate I’ve seen in a film, EVER, and that includes “Dune” and “Blade Runner.”
But please – and I say this not as a person who could do what you’ve done, but as a member of your audience, just some schmoe from the panhandle of Florida – now that you’ve conquered those other aspects of moviemaking, concentrate on improving your stories, because they’re all the same. “Fire and Ash” is essentially “The Way of Water,” which was a retelling of “Avatar.” We get it. Natives = good. Humans = bad. There’s got to be a new wrinkle to this epic, one that’s worth all the visual firepower you bring to the table.
And please, work on the dialogue. Apart from Stephen Lang’s Quaritch, who gets the best lines of the movie, your characters speak dialogue so cringeworthy it makes the fillings in my teeth ache. It comes across like middle-school moralizing. That scene with Jake and Spider, which by the way was the most emotionally fraught of the entire film, was nearly ruined by Spider’s corny acceptance-of-his-fate speech. Thank God it lasted only a few seconds.
I’m dismayed to hear this is not the end of “Avatar,” that there’s a fourth installment in the works for 2029, and a fifth for sometime in the 2030s. In fact, it’s distinctly possible this could become a continuing series of film and streaming series. IF that’s the case, then you’ve got to bring more to these films than just clashes between city people and country folks, because that conflict is getting old.
I’m giving your film an A-. Its technical achievements and the sweeping vision of the story are undeniable. But the quality of the plot doesn’t match the epic sweep of the storytelling. In that regard you could take pointers from the extended versions of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is an excellent movie, yes. But I guess what I’m trying to say is: You can do better.
That’s it. I’m done. I hope you’re not mad at me.
Please tell Sigourney hi for me. I’ve always been a fan.
Del
Mladen’s take
I learned a couple of, ah, truths, about myself watching “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
The first realization? I’d have no trouble sharing a bed with an alien if the entity is as soulless, ambitious, take-no-prisoners, and sultry as Varang. She is the evil asshole boss of a clan of very human Pandora natives portrayed in the recently released Avatar III.
Second, I’m unable to cope anymore with stories that extend the myth of other‑than‑earthly hopefulness conveyed in earlier sci-fi movies such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “2010: The Year We Make Contact,” or any such movie that argues there’s a heaven waiting for us when we die. There’s no supernatural something that’ll save us mortals from mortality. Yours truly agrees completely and without a shred of doubt with Bob Marley and The Wailers – “If you know what life is worth, you would look for yours on earth.” Or Pandora. God almighty, wait until you see how Pandora’s planet god Eywa manifests as a physical being. My head almost exploded it was so derivative and blatantly Space Odyssey.
Yes, the good Na’vi fight the bad Na’vi and the human colonialists still digging for Unobtainium and killing Pandora’s whale equivalents for the secret sauce contained in their bodies. But, that’s insufficient because the good Na’vi almost get their butts kicked and sustain terrible loss of life across species in the process. I offer this. Had the good Na’vi assumed that Eywa was, at least, indifferent to their lives, they would have fought harder earlier, kicking the crap out of the bad Na’vi and squalid humans while sustaining fewer fatalities by going on the offensive. Rely on a god, and all gods are unreliable, and it might be too late to save your only life when the shit hits the fan.
Third, what do you do when the bad guys are more charismatic than the good guys in a movie? I ask this because, more and more these days, people apply the fiction of moviemaking to their beliefs in actual life. Beautiful feline Varang and steadfast Quaritch, both very bad folk, are more entertaining than Jake and Neytiri, who are unentertaining and conscientious good folk. Entertainment is what ordinary Americans, and the rest of the peasants on this planet, want. What’s the result? A deranged orange blob at the head of the U.S. Senate‑sanctioned and Supreme Court‑unleashed Executive branch. Fascists running Argentina, El Salvador, Hungary, Israel, and Russia, to name just a few countries.
Fourth, I was forewarned. After we saw “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” Del said that he’d write a thoughtful and fair review. He did, unfortunately. I’m unable to disagree with what he put to e‑paper. Expect the movie’s grade. The third Avatar is way too first and second Avatar. It’s as bad as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which mimics its excellent and ancient predecessor “Star Wars” or, as it later came to be known, “Episode IV – A New Hope.” I hope there’s no Avatar IV but there will be. Varang and Quaritch, thankfully, survive in Avatar III. They’re the couple who is most likely to make the next Avatar slightly better than unpalatable.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” gets a B-, eh, a C+ from me and that’s generous. The movie delivers fabulous sight and sound. Del and I should’ve seen it in a Dolby theater because that might have distracted me from noticing the film’s irredeemable wankiness.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
[…] Sources https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9wamb6 https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/avatar-fire-and-ash-first-reviews/ https://www.cinelinx.com/movie-news/movie-reviews/avatar-fire-and-ash-review/ https://lamplightreview.com/avatar-fire-and-ash-movie-review/ https://delstonejr.com/2025/12/del-and-mladen-review-avatar-fire-and-ash/ […]
Dear James Cameron, how about making a real movie again? You know, with actors instead of what look like discolored progeny of the GEICO Gecko. If I wanted to see cartoons I’d watch Max Fleischer or Chuck Jones.
Totally agree. Wouldn’t it be nice if he’d use one of OUR stories?
Hi Linda, thanks for your note. You should definitely see the movie and judge for yourself, but I thought it was basically the same story as the previous two. – Del
Thank you so much, you saved me the pain of watching it! Del, I follow you on Instagram, you are immense, thank you for being you ❤️🙏🏼❤️