KICKIN’ ASH

A review of “Avatar: Fire and Ash”

It’s hard to believe but it’s true: Director James Cameron first introduced moviegoers to the dreamscape he calls Pandora, the fictional planet and setting for the first Avatar movie way back in 2009.

The original concept for the movie appeared to me at the time so convoluted, so complex, that even today I have a hard time explaining it to newbies. So, if you never have seen one of the, now three, Avatar movies, I suggest you look to Wikipedia.

The first movie, exquisitely designed to be seen in IMAX, was a revelation. I was fortunate to be within reasonable driving distance of an IMAX theater and sat enthralled by visions of exotic forest creatures dancing before my eyes, appearing so close to my face that I thought I could reach out and touch them.

It was an Eden that could exist only in Cameron’s fertile imagination, with huge forested islands that hung preposterously in the air, defying gravity, and trailing misty waterfalls. Pandora in that first revelatory movie was populated by blue-skinned natives called Na’vi.

Any other director might have opted for his creation to be the work of animators, maybe veterans of video games. But Cameron had other ideas. He hired real actors and employed motion-capture technology to render his cast with the now-famous indigenous features of tall, taut bodies with large eyes, magical pigtails and actual tails. (In motion-capture, the actors wear dots on their faces and clothing so computer-aided artists can later add appropriate character elements.)

His cast still includes Sam Worthington, as human Jake Sullivan (Sully) who is accepted into the Na’vi tribe and who eventually woos and marries a local woman played by Zoe Saldana. Veteran actress Sigourney Weaver had a prominent character role in the first movie and does astonishing voice work as Sully’s youngest daughter in parts two and three.

If you are entering Pandora’s world for the first time, you need to know that in Part Two (The Way of Water), Sully’s tribe joined forces with a tribe of beings who are able to live both on land and underwater. There was a consequential battle during which Sully’s oldest son was killed. And his death largely drives the narrative in Fire and Ash.

And there’s an evil General Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who like Sully is a former Marine and who was able to adopt the avatar of a Na’vi as a kind of camouflage. Quaritch has pledged to capture and kill Sully for interfering with an Earth-bound plan to conquer Pandora and plunder its natural resources.

In the new film, Sully is made aware of the evil general’s plan and is able to retrieve a large cache of weapons to help arm his newly-adopted tribal friends.

But Cameron adds a new and frightening element to the most recent chapter of his sprawling saga. He introduces a race of what can only be called “fire people,” or Ash, led by one of the most bloodthirsty characters ever to hit the big screen. Her name is Varang, played with appropriate menace by Oona Chaplin.

So, Sully and his tribal friends are being doubly threatened. At times, the story suggests, as all good screenplays do, that they are outmatched.

But I haven’t yet mentioned how Cameron’s story celebrates the deep wisdom of venerable sea creatures who live in Pandora’s oceans and who possess almost mystical powers. They are the true heroes here and elevate an otherwise ponderous action movie into something both thrilling and thought-provoking.

In other words, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.