A review pf the new blockbuster movie “Avatar: Fire And Ash”
Any film directed by James Cameron is a must-see and any film in his “Avatar” franchise is a veritable spectacular. We had to wait 13 years for the first sequel but only another three years for this third adventure.
As with all the “Avatar” movies, I choose to see this in IMAX and 3D on the largest screen in Britain at the BFI. It’s great fun with lots of action, but the notion of the avatar and the world of Pandora are now much less novel than they were and again the film is far too long. “Avatar 1” was 2:42; “Avatar 2” was even longer at 3:12; and “Avatar 3” has a bottom-numbing running time of 3:17.
Many of the characters are familiar, notably ex-marine, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his Na’vi wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their possible nemesis Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) who was killed in the first film but is back as a Na’vi Recombinant.
But we have a new clan of Na’vi, the Mangkwan, led by the wonderfully evil Vrang (Oona Chaplin). And there are new creatures in the air and the sea. Once more, visually the work is simply stunning.
However, the story is a familiar one: wicked humans with huge military resources, seeking to expropriate the special energy source Unobtainium, are defeated by a combination of nature-loving and spirit-worshipping Na’vi with some help from a variety of Pandora’s wildlife. So a somewhat unoriginal narrative with some pretty leaden dialogue and (did I mention this before?) it is just so long.