Avatar: Fire, Ash, and a Long but Beautiful Journey

This Christmas week, I’m sharing a Grinch-like opinion: most Hollywood blockbusters bore me. Marvel movies feel like homework, and I literally fell asleep during a Transformers flick.

There are some exceptions: The Quiet Place movies scratch my jump scare itch, and the Planet of the Apes films are an absolute blast.

Also on that short list is James Cameron’s Avatar series. Ever since the first movie in 2009 (which my grandma derisively called “the one with the blue people”), I’ve thrilled to the fantastic Na’Vi adventures on Pandora. 

Cameron continues the saga in the third installment, Avatar: Fire and Ash. He introduces a new tribe of antagonists, the Ash People.

The story gets a bit convoluted, so I’ll only mention my favorite element of it: Colonel Miles Quaritch, the villain of the first two films, joins forces with the leader of the Ash People, Varang. 

Their alliance takes the plot in intriguing new directions, and the scene where they team up is among the best in the entire series.

Sadly, the other plot strands aren’t quite as interesting, and the film drags slightly over its three-hour-plus runtime. 

Cameron is still one of the best visual storytellers around, however. The 3D visual effects pop on the big screen, and the cinematography (especially underwater) is breathtaking.

The plan is for Cameron to make two more Avatar movies. While I hope they’re shorter than this one, each trip to Pandora offers visual treasures galore.