Avatar: Fire And Ash: It’s a fucking waste of time!
in fact, with No.2 being about water, and No.3 being about fire, are 4 and 5 about Earth & Wind? When those come, we can boogie on down! DOWN! Boogie-on-down!
Seriously, the only thing I can remember about Avatar: The Way Of Water is that feeling of being ‘at one’ with the seat and never to escape – given how Vue Printworks’ IMAX seats are the same sized tight ones that Odeon had except now with reclining, it was the same hour told three times over, with shouty baddie Scoresby (Brendan Cowell) having his arm ripped off towards the end. Plus, helping the woman sat next to me with her 3D glasses – since before the 3D projector kicks in, Vue Printworks’ glasses lenses feel like one eye is covered up.
However, having seen the 2022 re-release of Avatar, I remembered that problem.
The best thing about Avatar: Fire And Ash, was that it featured a six-minute prologue for Christopher Nolan’s next opus, The Odyssey, out in July 2026, while the teasers for Avengers Doomsday and the Mandorian movie were nothing to shout about, although the latter was a reworked version of the IMAX countdown, just before the film starts.
As the new film opens, two of the giant Smurfs are flying about with the HFR (high frame rate) running at 48fps. However, when it often changes back down from 48fps to 24fps – often within a scene, it really jars. Why not just keep it ALL at 48fps, especially when 24fps looks jittery as a result? Or have some reason to keep chopping and changing? For example, Top Gun Maverick was 2.39:1 throughout for the indoor scenes, but opens up to 1.90:1 for the flying – so that delineates between the two. Here, with the HFR, it’s all over the place.
Like The Simpsons, this lot “High four!” rather than ‘high five’; and when they stop for a minute to chat, they “Take a knee”. No-one sane does that, but then it was shot in 2017 when taking a knee was still all the rage by idiots and/or Democrats.
While Stephen Lang (SISU: Road To Revenge) is a great actor, it’s too absolutely nobody’s benefit in the big Smurf world that his Col. Quaritch character was resurrected after being killed in the first one, given that he’s only there to unnecessarily stir shit up.
After some raiders come along and turn an air balloon into the Hindenberg, along comes this sequel’s main baddie, Varang (Oona Chaplin – Treason); and everyone seemingly wants to kill Spider (Jack Champion) – the human underwater-dweller – for reasons unexplained.
However, given that it’s dangerous out in the wild, and since they keep going back to the lab, periodically, why not just leave him in there?! I didn’t get why they keep going back there, anyway. It was clearly far away from the jungle in which they swing about. Do they have a teleporter? Or is it the Animus from Assassins Creed?
Plus, there’s a moment when Sully’s shooting with a sniper rifle, and has Varang in his sights, so why not just kill her?! Fucking idiot.
And, at one point, a character asks, “What am I doing?” – If only James Cameron had asked himself the same thing. With nothing better than soap opera-style plotting and dialogue, you can’t just say, “Well, both of the first two films made $2bn each, so that means James Cameron is right and you’re wrong” – since he can still be creatively bankrupt.
I could potentially actually look forward to it if there was an intermission, since it’s bloody ridiculous that we’re expected to sit there for over three hours without one. You wouldn’t get that from a Bollywood-type movie. They often even factor in an intermission by bringing a cliffhanger in the middle of the film. Why don’t American movie directors do that?
197 minutes? If you thought Tom Cruise was taking the piss with 170 minutes for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, James Cameron said, “Hold my beer…” – and hold in your bladder, too.
Still, going back to that point, there is a PERFECT intermission point 90 mins in, which really feels like an “End of Part One” moment, returning with some faffing about before things get going again – the same as Bollywood films do, because some of the patrons are still stuck in the toilet, due to bad time management.
Avatar: Fire And Ash looks nice, but it’s like a three-hour videogame intro with absolutely nothing new to offer beyond the last film. As such, it’s not the worst film of 2025, but definitely the most disappointing, and I actually felt a wave of depression coming over me as I made my way to my seat after a final trip to the toilet, just like the condemned man making his way to the electric chair after his final meal. At least that outcome would be brief!
James Cameron said he would make Avatar 4 & 5 once they knew whether enough people came to see 2 & 3. This will be an interesting outcome, since while this latest entry took $347m worldwide in the opening weekend, following wide estimates of $340-380m, the USA-only box office in that time was just $89.2m, compared to No.2’s £134.1m.
With 2 & 3 being filmed in 2017, Cameron has shot the opening third of No.4 already, given that he’ll then have a six-year time-jump into the second act for the Na’vi children to have aged in that time. Still, as bored as I was with Avatar: Fire And Ash, if it was conceived as a trilogy and no more, it does end its story at a point where you can just call it a day.
He’s said that there’s one storyline thread remaining which could be continued in comic book form, but does anyone even need that? And after Cameron made some incredible work in his earlier years, such as The Terminator, Terminator 2 Judgment Day, True Lies and Titanic, why in the world of fuck is he making this tedious shite?!
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credits scenes.
Avatar: Fire And Ash is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Plus, there’s plenty of other related stuff you can buy in the meantime.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 197 minutes
Release date: December 19th 2025
Studio: 20th Century Studios
Aspect ratio: 1.90:1 (IMAX); 1.85:1 / 2.39:1 (depending on screen shape) (X-OCN RAW (4K))
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 2/10
Director: James Cameron
Producers: James Cameron, Jon Landau
Screenplay: James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Music: Simon Franglen
Cast:
Jake Sully: Sam Worthington
Neytiri: Zoe Saldaña
Kiri: Sigourney Weaver
Quaritch: Stephen Lang
Varang: Oona Chaplin
Spider: Jack Champion
Ronal: Kate Winslet
Tonowari: Cliff Curtis
Norm: Joel David Moore
Mo’at: CCH Pounder
General Ardmore: Edie Falco
Scoresby: Brendan Cowell
Dr. Garvin: Jemaine Clement
Selfridge: Giovanni Ribisi
Peylak: David Thewlis
Lo’ak: Britain Dalton
Tuk: Trinity Jo-Li Bliss
Neteyam: Jamie Flatters
Tsireya: Bailey Bass
Aonung: Filip Geljo
Rotxo: Duane Evans Jr
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.