James Cameron’s Avatar movie series excels at bringing audiences to the theater thanks to its fantastic special effects, impressive motion capture performances, and brilliant worldbuilding. The third installment in that series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, hit the big screen at the end of 2025. Does it soar as high as its predecessors, or is it just treading water? Let’s explore everywhere this new film takes us to find out. 

The Good

The visuals in Fire and Ash are as great as anyone would expect from the Avatar franchise. If anything, they’re the best yet. The water, alien creatures, mech suits, submersibles, explosions, air crafts, and everything else looks outstandingly great. Sure, you can tell it’s CGI for most elements, but it’s legitimately some of the best CGI ever put on the big screen. The colors are vibrant, the designs of everything are creative, and the motions of the water and characters all look fluid. Everything looks beautiful.

The action scenes are incredible throughout the film. Whether they be in the sky, in the water, or in the ground, every battle is filled with suspense, terrific choreography, and plenty of surprises. There is no shortage of cool moments during the action, like sea creatures picking people off boats and using missiles attached to arrows to bring down air crafts. This move is filled with excitement that will have audiences on the edge of their seats.

There’s also plenty of heart, with some moments that are even cry-worthy. There are so many emotional moments between characters that will make it impossible to care for them. There’s even some surprisingly complicated emotions on display this time around, like with Quaritch and how he feels about his son, others around him, and his own duty.

A lot of this heart and emotion comes from how each character grows throughout the story and the lessons they learn over time. A son earning the respect of his father while following his own path, an antagonist gradually learning what truly matters to him, characters discovering the love of found family, and more are all featured in the movie, and are all handled well. These characters grow and learn in great and satisfying ways.

The important themes the story focuses on also add to its heart. Of course, the usual environmentalism messages seen in the previous films are still present, but there’s so much more this time around. The movie also touches on themes of identity and faith, as well as others. It’s all enough to make one truly think about the real world around them and to relate to this fantastical world the movie takes place in.

The Avatar movies are known for their brilliant worldbuilding, and this installment is no different. Pandora is explored even deeper than ever, showing the audience more locations and creatures, and even a new clan of Na’vi. Their faith in Eywa is even explored more than ever, which offers answers to questions set up in previous movies. It’s genuinely so much fun to learn more about this world.

The motion capture performances are all top-notch, which is impressive since it comes with more of a challenge than traditional acting. The likes of Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington definitely stand out the most, but everyone, even the younger actors, do a fantastic job.

There’s a new villain joining the cast this time around with Varang, played by Oona Chaplin. Her character is absolutely crazy and a ton of fun to watch. She adds a sense of twisted entertainment that the other movies were lacking. She’s definitely a welcome addition to this world.

The Bad

These movies are always grand in scale, which is awesome. However, because of how big the movie is, there are some side characters, some of whom are important to the overall story, who don’t get nearly enough screentime. It’s like they were forgotten and then thrown in at the last minute once James Cameron remembered them. For example, Norm plays a huge role in teaching the audience about how the rules of the world work and is supposed to be one of Jake’s closest allies, but he’s shoved to the side outside of one or two scenes.

It’s also worth noting that there may be a few too many characters in general at times. Because they’re mostly all Na’vi, it’s hard to tell who is who on occasion. It’s rarely an issue, but there are times when it definitely is.

Perhaps a more egregious issue, though, is that it feels like there are too many subplots at times. It’s fine to have multiple subplots in a film as long as they all feel related and important enough, and they all come together in the end. That’s thankfully the case with Fire and Ash, but it still feels like some subplots could have been removed, especially since the movie is already so long. The previous movie had the Sully kids fighting for the rights and survival of the Tulkuns, so why do they need to be doing it again here? It all still works in the end. It’s just a lot.

Conclusion

Avatar: Fire and Ash builds upon the previous films in spectacular ways. The world is explored more and the characters grow appropriately. The visuals are gorgeous, the action is riveting, and there’s plenty of emotion. Sure, it feels like a lot at times, but it’s all extremely entertaining and well-made. It’ll undoubtedly be intriguing to see where the series goes from here.

Rating: 9.5 / 10