'Avatar: Fire and Ash'-Strong Heart, Weak Script
Martin Scorsese once compared Marvel films to theme park rides. A more fitting example of his euphemism would be the Avatar films. There's not much of a problem with that as long as the movie has a strong enough narrative foundation. The first Avatar was an updated version of the white-savior trope, but it worked because the movie was visually unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. Without question, Avatar is the reason we go to the theaters, and it should be applauded for that effort. You can't get the same experience on your television, and you should be ashamed if you're watching the Avatar films on your phone. Once the experience of a 3D trip to Pandora wears off, these movies are filled with structural inconsistencies and tired cliches. It is obviously a story about multiculturalism written from the perspective of a privileged white man.
How, within three films that clock in at over three hours, does James Cameron manage to write the same story three times with nothing new to share? The plot of the first film is much tighter than the sequels, which simply stretched the original's length with about as much narrative quality as a straight-to-VHS Disney cartoon sequel. The plot of the first film is this: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a marine assigned to colonize the planet of Pandora. However, he has a Kevin Costner Dances with Wolves aha moment, becoming one of the Naʼvi and leading the fight against the evil colonizers.
In The Way of Water, the colonizers are back, led by an unexplained, miraculously alive Recom Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). With the exception of one major casualty, Jake is able to fend the colonizers off once again. In Fire and Ash, a once more miraculously alive Quaritch seeks revenge against Jake and possession of Pandora. I'm going to guess Avatar 4 will be about Jake defending his land against the military, for the fourth time.
It's clear that James Cameron doesn't have much of a story to go on after the first film, yet he wants to make an ungodly number of these movies. Hopefully, he accomplishes that goal before he meets the grave. At the same time, I hope he stops making these movies so he can move on to a different project. Much like how I wished George Lucas had never made the Star Wars prequels, so he could keep experimenting with other ideas.
James Cameron is a brilliant inventor and the box-office GOAT. The man tells simple stories. He's a blockbuster filmmaker in every sense of the word. But he's the best at it. He's terrific at telling simplified stories about nuclear war, historic catastrophes, and racism in a way that audiences can latch onto without having to sit through a lecture or convoluted plot. Yet, the more I see of these Avatar sequels, the more I understand why James Cameron let the Terminator franchise die without his creative control. Until he returned as a writer to put the final nail in Skynet's coffin within the first few seconds of Terminator: Dark Fate.
James Cameron is a two-movie guy. His first Terminator is a horror-action film, while the second is a straight-up action film. The same can be said for Aliens, although Cameron never directed Alien. James is an expert at shifting tone; maybe he should do that with Avatar. In these excruciatingly long movies, the plot of this film, like that of the one before it, is razor-thin. When the stories should really be an hour and a half to two hours tops, JC extends the length by inserting action sequences and scenery that do about as much as a pointless song in a bad musical. Do we need to see the Naʼvi riding on a fish set to happy music for 10 minutes? Or a scene where one of Jake's kids is rolling around in the grass for five minutes for no apparent reason? Not to mention the endless action meant to hold the audience's attention, like someone dangling something shiny in front of a cat.
It's understandable why James Cameron opts for these extended lengths. If the audience is going to wait eons for each film, then pay $30 per ticket, plus parking, and concessions, then they should get their money's worth. Indeed, you do get that. However, try watching the movie from home; they're boring. Well, maybe not the first one, but the second one is a slog, while the third is even worse.
These films desperately need something new. Have the bad guys win for once. Where's our Empire Strikes Back moment? There's one low point the characters go through in this movie that's explored, but then, our heroes keep making the same poor decisions that put them in danger. There are a couple of deep scenes related to grief and murder that quickly get forgotten about, so more things can explode.
Jake reminisces about his failures, the risk Spider (Jack Champion) poses to Pandora, and reveals the repercussions of Jake ruining the lives of the sea Naʼvi. Cameron touches upon these ideas, even has some wonderfully nuanced, dark, honest scenes between characters, then ditches all of that because he thinks the general audience is stupid, so he opts for more action to prevent them from tuning out.
If you haven't seen the second film, then you'll have no clue what's going on in this film. However, after rewatching it the night before my screening, I still had trouble keeping track of who was who because all the Naʼvi looked the same and had similar, puzzling names. Does that make me a racist? When the action is going on, not only do I have trouble keeping track of characters amid the large skirmishes, but James Cameron himself has difficulty keeping track of who's where. New characters like Varang (Oona Chaplin) are underutilized, so that we can have more screen time with the generic Miles Quaritch. Can't we have an antagonist outside of the US military?
Avatar is getting old, making you feel like you're aging as the story keeps repeating the same beats for three+ hours. James Cameron has stated that if this movie bombs, he'll stop making Avatar films. We all know this movie will do very well. The audiences will likely praise it because they'll be coasting on the high of the 3D ride. Once the Pandora drugs wear off, hopefully, Cameron could make a sobering Avatar picture, focused more on characters than on set pieces. But we just get more of the same thrill-ride CGI throw-up instead. Based on these movies' track records, it seems unlikely Avatar 4 will take any chances.
