Avatar: Fire and Ash

Avatar: Fire and Ash (3–D HFR version) mAI, 2025, 2 stars

Avatar  overstays its welcome

Third time is not the charm

Exclusive to MeierMovies, January 10, 2026

Capturing the zeitgeist is quite an achievement. And after three weeks atop the box office, the third installment in writer-director James Cameron’s blockbuster action/sci-fi/fantasy series has clearly reached that cultural milestone. But setting aside the visual effects, which are again astonishing, Avatar: Fire and Ash offers little except a derivative plot and cringeworthy dialogue.

So, yes, it has indeed captured the zeitgeist, for it is just like Trump’s America: big, loud and dumb.

Cameron doesn’t deserve my insults in regards to his film’s technological achievements, however. What he has accomplished in that sphere deserves continued praise, as does his insistence that he will not make extensive use of generative AI. He says artificial intelligence was used only for non-creative jobs, including speeding up repetitive animation tasks. (But aren’t those creative too, in a smaller sense? Sadly, I suppose the days of the human in-betweener are over.)

The visual effects are so good that I voted them best of the year during the Florida Film Critics Circle annual awards before I had seen the entire film. I did so based on having seen only clips, and I stand by that decision.

With those praises out of the way, let me mention that I had issues with the visuals after plunking down $32 to see it in 3-D and 48 frames per second in a true IMAX theater. (For that price, I almost expected Cameron to attend. But more on inflation later.) My problem – and it’s one that often affects 3-D screenings – is the film looked a bit dark. In addition, the 48fps format, while enhancing the realism, made everything look a bit cheap, especially the non-motion-captured actors, such as Miles Socorro (Spider).

Focus is an issue too, especially in 3-D, which makes the fuzzy backgrounds and foregrounds more noticeable when a movie employs a rather small depth of field, as Fire and Ash often does, especially during its rare quiet moments, such as conversations. Many people talk about the beauty of Avatar, but if you can’t see the beauty clearly, it’s wasted. And even when veteran cinematographer Russell Carpenter and the animation crew choose to keep almost everything in focus, the action is so frenetic that one often can’t completely appreciate the art direction. (Carpenter is a frequent Cameron collaborator, having shot Titanic and the second Avatar. So I’m clearly outclassed in this discussion. All I know is that my own eyes had problems with the presentation in 3-D IMAX.)

If you don’t remember the plot of Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), I would encourage you to brush up before attending the new film, as Cameron throws you right in without any opening credits or exposition. In this sense, the second and third installments are a single film. And considering that the new one is an excessive three hours and 17 minutes, that’s a lot of story to absorb.

Or is it? The plot, after all, is essentially a retread. With so many similarities to the past two films, with many characters favoring each other visually and thematically, and with the action coming fast and furiously, I eventually congealed into a puddle resembling that sticky stuff you step on in old movie theaters. I was both bored and overstimulated, if that’s possible.

One can’t deny that, for many moviegoers, especially teenagers and those who loved the first two, Fire and Ash will be another exhilarating ride. “Yippee,” I could almost hear my fellow audience members yelling as they swooped and soared on the backs of mountain banshees. My retort: “Stop the cinema. I want to get off.”

So, to all you bros and bitches out there (Cameron loves those words), enjoy the escapism, even if the script makes Cecil B. DeMille look like Ingmar Bergman.

 

Financial perspective

Now back to the money. Tickets have become so expensive that it’s not surprising when films continue to set records. Or do they?

In a sign of either Avatar fatigue or the decline of cinema-going, this latest film will finish behind the previous two in today’s dollars (both domestically and globally) – and WAY behind in adjusted-for-inflation bucks. As the recording industry (which judges by units sold, not money) proves, that latter stat is the only true way to gauge success. I’ve been preaching this for years and will continue until the important people listen.

But they won’t, because calculating success in non-adjusted dollars is the industry’s biggest marketing scheme. They shout “biggest,” “top-grossing” and “#1” when, in reality (inflation-adjusted money), their new films aren’t anywhere close to setting records. And because of the rise of streaming and the decline of theaters, the theatrical records of the old films will likely be safe for eternity.

Contributing to the new Avatar’s monetary underperformance (if you consider a projected $1.8 billion global total an underperformance) is the novelty factor, or lack thereof. When the original movie debuted in 2009, no one had ever seen anything like it before, and that wow factor led the movie to the #1 all-time global and domestic top spots in straight money, the #2 all-time global spot in inflation-adjusted dollars (behind only Gone with the Wind) and the #15 all-time domestic position in inflation-adjusted bucks. Because The Way of Water waited 13 years to debut, audiences wanted to see how the technology had improved. But Fire and Ash follows just two years after, and the technological difference is small.

Speaking of being wowed, I pleasantly recall basking in that aforementioned novelty while viewing the previous Avatar films at Pointe Orlando Regal in Orlando, Florida, the same theater at which I just screened the third. I also remember enjoying an after-movie drink and live music at B.B. King’s Blues Club, adjacent to the cinema. But the club closed. Like Avatar, the thrill is gone.

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For more information on the movie, visit IMDB and Wikipedia. The film is currently in cinemas. For historical perspective on financial performance, see BoxOfficeMojo and Wikipedia. And for my original analysis of Avatar: The Way of Water and its financial performance, go here.