Tuesday, 30 December 2025

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Official Australian release date: 18/12/25. Viewed: 28/12/25.
Director: James Cameron
Actors: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang
Genre: Sci-Fi / Action
Rating: M

‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ is the 3rd Avatar film, and seems quick after ‘The Way of Water’ from only 3 years ago, but a trilogy over 17 years is quite spaced out compared to most. This is an almost immediate sequel to the previous film and follows Jake Sully (Worthington) and Neytiri (Saldana) and their children Lo’ak (Dalton), Kiri (Weaver), Tuk (Bliss) & Spider (Champion) as they grieve the losses. They’re still with the sea people (Curtis & Winslet).

Much like ‘The Way of Water’, Quaritch (Lang) is still alive in a Navi body and still hunting the Sullys. We have lots of recurring characters – Norm (Moore), Garvin (Clement), Scoresby (Cowell), Selfridge (Ribisi), as we spend a bit of the film in the human settlement. However, the main plot follows Varang (Chaplin), a sort-of-witch who leads the Ash/bad Navi and aligns with Quaritch to hunt the Sullys. We also have more of the whales (“Tulkun”), which is both happy and sad. Good to see Clement’s arc, and he almost gets some jokes in.

While it feels a bit like déjà vu, as there’s lots of similar beats to the previous film and the ending of the first ‘Avatar’, it still looks great with the CGI once again top-notch and the score and further development of most characters, particularly their kids, is good. There’s a few new creatures, and while it’s long at 3 hours 15min, it was engaging and draws you back into the world of Pandora effortlessly. I just hope we get to see a resolution to the Navi vs human conflict at some point.

Overall: Great to see in IMAX & 3D in Melbourne

Gav’s Rating: 3.5 stars

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