The Doctor’s Diagnosis: D
James Cameron is truly a genius. I wasn’t a fan of the first two Avatar movies, but I had an epiphany somewhere during the third hour of watching Avatar: Fire and Ash. It was like lightning struck me and I had this grand moment of intellectual clarity. Alright, this will sound wild, but hear me out: The Na’vi are like Native Americans and the films are actually social commentaries on colonialization and environmentalism. Did I do it? Did I crack the fucking code? Cameron had to make the same movie three fucking times, each one longer than the last, in order for me to grasp it, but I really appreciate his patience. Cameron be praised. I can’t hope to approach the mountainous peaks of his intellect, but I have caught a glimpse of his greatness to decipher the puzzle for my fellow plebeians.
If you’ve seen the first two movies, then you are in for a real frigging shocker with the plot of Avatar: Fire and Ash. If you’re not already sitting, please take a seat for this. Ready? Ok, now Jake Sully is living with the Na’vi, but the evil humans are plotting against them and want to drain the world of its natural resources. This ultimately leads to a gigantic battle between the humans and the Na’vi. I know, right!? Can you believe it? Frigging Cameron, man. How does he keep this shit so fresh?
The one saving grace here is the villains. Stephen Lang inexplicitly returns as Colonel Quaritch even though he died in the last movie; this is explained when Sully points it out and Quaritch simply says “I ain’t that easy to kill.” That’s some lazy ass writing, but I’ll give it a pass because these movies would be more insufferable without Lang chewing scenery like a rabid dog. In this entry, he’s paired with Varang (played by Oona Chaplin), the leader of the war-mongering fire tribe of the Na’vi. These two are genuinely entertaining as hell and, for better or worse, come across like a pair of villains in a Joel Shumacher Batman movie. Sure, the movie is terrible and their line reads are as nuanced as a third grader trying to recite King Lear, but I actually woke up when they are on screen together. Unfortunately, that amounts to a small percentage of the film’s seemingly endless running time, but it’s something.
The protagonists are still piles of nothing, though. Jake Sully is perhaps the least interesting main character to ever lead a major blockbuster franchise and he has been painfully recreating the same arc for three movies now. The other Na’vi are completely interchangeable, to the point that I usually am not sure what character I am looking at. The best heroic character in the movie is a random marine biologist that shows up for a couple of scenes towards the end; the movie should have been about that dude. The heroes are, other than the random marine biologist, hilariously ineffective. Here is a drinking game for you: take a shot every time the heroes have one of the main villains literally in the bullseye of a rifle scope and just don’t pull the trigger. You will need to take an Uber home from the theater because you will be frigging hammered.
But then there are the visuals. I saw this in IMAX 3D because, really, what is the point of seeing it otherwise? If you are waiting to watch this at home, then you are depriving yourself of the one thing this movie has to offer. The visuals and 3D are stunning as usual; the film is a major technical achievement, as it should be on a $350 million budget. I have often heard the argument that one should view these movies as theme park attractions, rather than regular narrative films, in order to really understand the appeal of them. Well, I have a couple of problems with that take. First, these are narrative films regardless of the lack of effort put into the narrative. Second, I do enjoy 3D rides like Escape from Gringotts in Harry Potter World or the Spider-Man ride at Universal (not sure if that one is still there, but it was a banger). But you know what I appreciated about the Gringotts ride? It isn’t 3 fucking hours and 20 minutes long. I didn’t have to devote an entire afternoon to going on a single ride. If that were the case, I would have desperately wanted to jump off a half hour into the ride, which is basically what its like to watch an Avatar movie.
As a huge movie fan, James Cameron is perhaps the most infuriating director out there. The man made some of the greatest action/sci-fi films of all time with The Terminator, Terminator 2 and Aliens. True Lies isn’t on that level, but it is still a damn fun movie. It’s a shame that he has seemingly devoted the last decades of his career to this dreck. Cameron has been condescendingly dismissive of people making that point, citing the ridiculous financial success of this franchise. That’s fair, but then I can also be condescendingly dismissive of these bullshit movies. But Avatar 4 is on the release schedule for 2029 (I’m guessing it won’t actually come out until 2030 at the earliest) and I’ll see it because I’m an idiot. I just hope it further explores the themes of colonialization and environmentalism because this is deep, important stuff, people.
Image by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar%3A_Fire_and_Ash#/media/File:Avatar_Fire_and_Ash_poster.jpeg
