Culture
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’: When looking good isn’t good enough
By: Gordon Briggs
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Let me start this review by admitting that I enjoyed the first two Avatar movies.
While the films remain visually entrancing, I found this latest installment to be frustratingly repetitive. Furthermore, despite its strong environmentalist themes, the movie lacked the body-swapping cyberpunk premise that made the original so intriguing.
By now, you’re probably familiar with Avatar‘s premise. Set on the exotic alien planet of Pandora, we follow the Sully family, led by the human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully ( Sam Worthington), as they face the combined threats of both human colonists and a new threat from the Mangkwan, a tribe of savage, warmongering Na’vi who have collaborated with the human invaders to destroy Sully’s people.
Firstly, I want to highlight some of the good. As with the previous installments, the movie looks stunning on the big screen. I still get a kick out of the bio-luminescent look of this alien ecosystem and the attention to detail within. When we see images of alien beings flying through the air on giant winged reptilian creatures, the film’s visuals are undeniable.
Unfortunately, after two other movies and six hours of traipsing around an alien jungle, simply looking good isn’t good enough.
Specifically, two problems emerge. In the first Avatar movie, our hero was an outsider. He was a human colonizer who used advanced technology to become an undercover alien. Even the second movie had Sully’s nemesis, Miles Quaritch ( Stephen Lang), eventually shed his human form and become the Navi creature he once hated. What’s disappointing is how, in Fire and Ash, that aspect of tech-induced identity switching is gone.
Instead, what we get is a lot of story built around the character of Spider, a Tarzan-looking human who lives among the Navi, even though he cannot breathe Pandora’s air and is forced to wear an oxygen mask. It’s not that the actor who plays him is weak; I don’t find him interesting. A great deal of this movie’s attempts at pathos are built around him. He felt like more of a plot device rather than a fully formed character that we cared about.
Furthermore, after three hours, I found the film frustratingly repetitive. Most of its story revolves around someone from the Sully family being taken captive and then escaping. I’m not exaggerating when I say the capture-then-escape dynamic happens over and over again. Suddenly it occurred to me: director James Cameron has enough imagery for ten movies, but not enough story for three. ★★1/2