Movie Review: ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’

Directed by James Cameron, Avatar: Fire and Ash was released on December 19, 2025, three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water, which was itself a long-awaited sequel to the original Avatar movie released in 2009. Historically, the Avatar movies and James Cameron movies in general have been enormous box-office hits. Titanic, also directed by James Cameron in 1997, was the first movie to gross over 2 billion dollars, and Avatar 1 and 2 hold the titles of the highest and third-highest movies of all time, grossing 2.9 and 2.3 billion dollars, respectively. So it’s understandable that, despite grossing 1.4 billion worldwide and ranking 16th on the list, Fire and Ash’s box office performance is considered disappointing by many.

In my opinion, Fire and Ash, and the Avatar series in general, have gotten a lot more hate than they deserve. But that doesn’t mean that this movie doesn’t have room for improvement. I like the Avatar series not only for its stunning visuals, but also for how it explores how life might form on another planet (or, in this case, a moon) in much greater depth and for its more detailed CGI rendering of extraterrestrial life than other franchises with extraterrestrial life, like Star Wars or Marvel. Pandora, for once, actually has more than one biome, and the wildlife and culture have significantly more thought put into them.

In the first and second movies, we were introduced to and immersed in two environments and people: first, the forest (Omatikaya), and then the reef (Metkayina). Fire and Ash introduced two more tribes: air traders (Tlalim) and ash people (Mangkwan), but it spent too much time juggling all four people and environments in addition to the new city built up by humans, and most of the story happened with the Metkayina, so over all we didn’t get as much new world building as we could have, which is a shame because that’s the best part of the series. And if you haven’t noticed already, the four tribes they focus on are pretty cliché, especially at the start of the story when the “earth” people from the water tribe were traveling with the air traders, then everything changed when the fire nation attacked. See where I’m going? Still, what we got from the air traders and ash people did provide great world-building, new biology, and stunning visuals. 

When it comes to the story, this movie had really well-done and diverse character development, even with its huge main cast. Each member of the Sully family, along with Spider, Quaritch, and a few other characters, had clear character arcs and often multiple moments in which they made decisions or took actions that significantly impacted the story and enabled character growth. Each character also had their own story, and many of the relationships between characters developed significantly and became more nuanced. 

However, while the character development was great, having to fit so many different, well-developed, and engaging arcs together made the overall plot feel very cluttered. It felt like two or three major storylines were overlapping, with half the movie trying to untangle everything going on with Spider, while the other half was about saving the tulkun (pandoran whales) from hunting by the humans. Quaritch was (of course) trying to kill Jake Sully, which integrated itself into both plots but brought a lot of its own things as well. Watching the third act also felt like déjà vu, since it was essentially a mix of the final battles from the first two movies, with little new.

Overall, whether you enjoy the movie depends on two things: your mindset going in and whether you know the story well. Fire and Ash is a direct continuation of The Way of Water, and both are based on lore from Avatar (2009), so I recommend watching the first two Avatar movies before watching Fire and Ash. I also recommend watching The Way of Water close to when you watch Fire and Ash, so the story stays fresh, and you understand what’s going on much better. As for your mindset, I went into the movie telling myself I wanted to enjoy it, and I did. However, if you think it’s going to be a bad movie, then you’ll finish it thinking it’s a bad movie. But at that point, why are you even watching it?

Avatar: Fire and Ash is in theatres through March 2026.