Movie Review: Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) *No Spoilers*

Movie Review: Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) No Spoilers

James Cameron's Avatar movies are one of the few I'll pay to watch in a cinema without knowing anything about the story. Largely because I know they'll at least be visually interesting and worthy of seeing on a big screen.

That was the case for the third installment, Avatar: Fire and Ash. I may have seen a trailer at some point in the lead up to its release but I'm not sure? All I could definitely tell you is, in the second movie we were introduced to water tribes, and in this movie we were going to be introduced to fire tribes.

Which is really all you need to know in hindsight. The movie does get you up to speed with the key throughlines from Avatar: The Way of Water pretty quickly (well quickly for a three hour Avatar movie).

You may even be able to watch this without seeing the first two because it's not entirely necessary to know the history of the characters for this installment.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family are still being pursued by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), now also after his son, Spider (Jake Champion), who is living with the Sully family. During the pursuit the Sully's encounter the Ash People, who, as you would imagine, want to see everything burn.

Comedy ensues... not really.

If I'm honest, this installment is pretty much everything you saw in Avatar 2, turned up a few extra notches, and with a few new things thrown in that seem to suggest one character is particularly more powerful than they even know at this point.

By the end I was thinking the sub title of this film should've been 'One Battle After Another' but that may have been confusing, with some other movie having that title recently. While I wouldn't say Avatar 3 is fast paced, it's not slow either. However the quiet moments don't last long before you're thrown into the next action sequence - anything from a small band of attackers catching up, to a full on battle with army upon army.

While I enjoyed Avatar 2 more, as that film did much of the world building grunt work that the third installment spring boards from, this is still a fun watch if you enjoy the Avatar world.

Note that I didn't see the 3D version of this or the previous movie, because I've gone off paying for 3D films. Every 3D movie I've seen, including the first Avatar movie, when 3D was undergoing a revival, the 3D effect is great for about the first 20 minutes then, I just forget I'm watching 3D, and it feels like I'm watching a regular movie. For me, the story is what matters over everything.

This movie is still worth seeing on the biggest screen you can (and in 3D if you really like that experience). Other than the Ash Tribe it doesn't particularly advance the world building a whole lot. There are definitely some loose ends that could lead into a fourth installment, should that happen.

Despite my aversion to movies over two hours long, I managed to sit through the entire film without it feeling long or too drawn out. That said, I may be over Avatar films if the next one is more of the same. James Cameron really needs to evolve the storyline with much more world building and/or resolution to keep the franchise alive for two more films.

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