Let’s get the rating out of the way first, because it frames everything else.
If Avatar was a 4.5/5, and Avatar: The Way of Water landed at a solid 4/5, then Avatar: Fire and Ash sits at a 3/5 for me.
That doesn’t mean it’s bad.
It does mean it didn’t stick with me.
And notably, my two teenagers were even more disappointed than I was. These are kids who watched the first film over and over again, and who happily went to see the second Avatar film twice on IMAX (they were much too young to see the first in theatres).
This time, walking out of the theater, the reaction was basically: “Yeah… that was fine.”
Which, for Avatar, feels telling.
**Warning: spoilers ahead!**
A familiar story, wearing new colors
Fire and Ash feels familiar — not because it lacks polish, but because it keeps circling the same narrative ground.
We’re in largely the same biomes, dealing with the same tribes, and facing the same human-versus-Na’vi dynamics we’ve already seen play out. The one real exception is Varang’s Fire-and-Ash tribe, which is easily the most intriguing new element in the film.
They’re a dark mirror of the Na’vi we know — almost a devil-version. Harsher. More brutal. Visually striking. Tonally unsettling. And honestly? That part worked. It was genuinely fun to watch.
But the film barely explores them.
We don’t really learn their history, their beliefs, or how they relate to Eywa. They’re introduced as a powerful contrast — proof that Na’vi culture isn’t monolithic — and then mostly used as a threat marker before the story moves on.
That feels like a missed opportunity.
This could have been the moment where Avatar finally explored internal ideological conflict among the Na’vi themselves, not just Na’vi versus humans. Instead, what’s genuinely new ends up being treated superficially — interesting to look at, but not allowed to reshape the story.
Character arcs that move too fast to land
This same “surface-level depth” problem shows up in the character work.
Neytiri begins the film consumed by grief and rage. She hates Spider. She hates humans. She wants Spider dead — and given the stakes, that reaction actually makes sense.
Then, within what feels like a few days, she completely reverses course and wants to save him.
The shift is too fast. There’s no slow emotional thaw, no real internal struggle we get to sit with. It’s mourning → hatred → acceptance → love, compressed into a very short span of screen time. My teens noticed it immediately, without prompting.
Jake’s arc mirrors this. He doesn’t grasp how deeply he’s hurting his son… until suddenly he does. And just like that, the dynamic flips. The destination is fine. The journey just isn’t there.
None of these arcs are wrong in theory. They’re just rushed, which makes them feel unearned.
Stakes that should feel heavier than they do
Spider remains one of the film’s most uncomfortable contradictions.
He’s emotionally important. He’s human. And he’s also a walking existential risk.
If humans figure out how to breathe Pandora’s air, that’s effectively game over for the Na’vi. The film gestures at this reality but never fully grapples with it. It wants us to focus on the emotional bond while quietly sidestepping the strategic implications.
That disconnect softens stakes that should feel crushing.
A billion-dollar success… that still feels smaller
Here’s where the real-world context sort of lines up with the experience.
Fire and Ash crossed $1 billion worldwide (see links below), which is objectively impressive. Very few films pull that off anymore. But the shape of that success matters.
Domestically (US & Canadian markets), the box office was noticeably softer than previous Avatar films. The momentum came largely from international markets. In other words, it’s still a global spectacle — just less of a truly global cultural event.
That tracks perfectly with how the movie feels: visually unmatched, competently made, but no longer carrying that “you must see this” energy.
As one of my kids put it: “It looked amazing… but it felt like we’d already seen this movie.”
Enjoyable, but not essential
We went to see the first two Avatar films twice in theaters. They rewarded rewatches. Fire and Ash doesn’t really invite one.
It feels like a bridge chapter — beautifully rendered, competently executed, but not something that stands strongly on its own. A rinse-and-repeat of The Way of Water, with darker tones and ash drifting through the frame.
Looking ahead
I’m still invested in Pandora. So are my kids, even if this chapter left us a bit underwhelmed. But if Avatar 4 and 5 want to recapture that early magic, they need to take bigger narrative risks:
- let new cultures genuinely reshape the story,
- allow emotional and ideological conflicts to unfold over time,
- and stop treating each film like a self-contained reset, where big events happen but the world quietly snaps back into place by the next chapter.
Fire and Ash proves the franchise still draws massive audiences and still looks incredible. What it doesn’t quite prove is that it’s evolving.
For a saga about exploring the unknown, that might be the biggest missed opportunity of all.
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1 comment:
I wanted to see this in theaters, but by this point I might just as well wait for streaming. I only watched the water one once, in the theater, and didn't bother with it at all on streaming. I don't know if any of them will ever have the cultural impact of the first one.
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