Avatar: Fire & Ash

When does a magic trick cease to be a magic trick?

How do you split judgement between the merits of something on a creative level and the actual underlying substance of what you are watching?

Two (of many) questions to ponder when watching Avatar: Fire & Ash.

This franchise is constantly baffling. It breaks ground in terms of the very fundamentals of film development and generates huge numbers at the box office.

All the while it confounds critics and audiences whose bums no doubt ache from the colossal runtimes. It also, seemingly, is something that younger audiences are interested in despite featuring more ‘annoying’ characters than any conventional hero you can latch on to.

You can judge Fire & Ash on that aforementioned creative level or by the actual story you’re seeing. One will do it more favours than the other.

Unfortunately, it suffers from the same fate as its forebears in not really justifying that run time (upwards of three hours here.) The actual story beats are minimal and, whilst everything introduced is largely interesting, quite a lot of it goes unexplained.

It’s quite amazing how many questions you’re left with as the credits roll here. Character motivation and backstory is lacking to say the least.

It’s therefore quite hard to care about a lot going on. Some characters die in this film. Some ‘major’ things occur in the ongoing story. Remembering them by the time the fourth film comes around could be difficult.

That’s partly because most of the characters feel like they’ve walked in from an early noughties, early CGI action film. Some are so unlikeable it is borderline off putting. A few (looking at you Spider) could be labelled the Jar Jar of this series and that’s in the negative sense.

Cameron’s creative decisions are brave and there to be admired but it isn’t half odd a lot of the time and unnecessary. Did we need to watch lengthy whale chats done with subtitles? Did we need even half of what’s going on?

It leaves you almost feeling ‘anything this long has to feel epic and good.’ Actually quite a lot of this is plodding and dull.

However, all of that meandering does finally give way to a climactic battle which largely justifies the film’s existence.

Whilst even in itself feeling overlong (there are a few moments of ‘surely it’s over now’), it does finish strongly and probably elevates itself to the top of the tree so far in the Avatar series.

We do also have to chat, again, about just how damn good this thing looks.

You cannot take for granted just what an achievement this thing is. It puts every other use of CGI to shame and there are moments (often when water is involved, especially at night) where you truly feel like you’re watching footage of actual giant blue aliens because, surely, this can’t be anything else.

It brings us back to those opening questions. Does the sheer look and effort and ambition and beauty of this thing justify what is starting to become, story-wise, frustrating, plodding and deeply unlikable?

It’s such a bizarre conundrum and really is going to divide people. If you’re into it, great, good for you and hopefully the fourth and fifth films stick the landing.

However, it just feels wrong to rank it alongside other classic franchises.

As a contribution to cinema and an experience in visual beauty? It’s nigh unparalleled.

As a blockbuster film and if this didn’t look as good as it does? It wouldn’t have got to film three.

⭐️⭐️⭐️