James Cameron is angry. He is angry with Artificial Intelligence, he is angry with those who do not understand that his films, besides being visually stunning, also evoke a lot of emotion, and he is angry because if he, who has directed two of the three most-watched movies in the history of cinema, doesn't get angry, who will. Whether for this reason or for whatever reason, the Na'vi, his characters, are also angry in this third Na'vi installment. Some because it cannot be that humans deplete their resources and kill whales for no reason other than greed (although, truth be told, greed always works as a motive) and others, these newcomers to the party, because the first ones completely ignored them when the volcanoes destroyed everything they had. But the anger doesn't stop there. It turns out that the humans who have arrived on Pandora (you guessed it) are also not having a good time. I won't bother to explain the reasons for their unease because when has a human not been seen angry? Just ask James Cameron if not. And then, thankfully, there are the whales. They are, at first, calm. As they explain themselves in their particular language subtitled in yellow, they are naturally pacifists. But (there is always a but) there comes a moment when even for these aquatic emulators of Gandhi, it is too much. Wait, is there anyone on Pandora who is not on edge? Short answer: No.
Indeed, three years have passed since our last stop on the Na'vi planet and things are not going well on Pandora. Much tension, many hardships, much drama. And that, let's admit it, is not good for anyone. We won't say that this is the main problem of the new installment of Avatar, but it is one of them. In its constant effort to earn respect, to be dramatically relevant, to not be mistaken for a pack of experiences, to place family tragedy at the center as if it were The Searchers... in its effort, we were saying, to not be seen simply as a visual extravaganza, Avatar: Fire and Ashes is, unlike its predecessors, a tense, uncomfortable, and very scolding movie. It is entirely dedicated, if not thrown, into a frenzy of action and reaction, crisis and counter-crisis, euphoria and depression that, truth be told, exhausts with each of its countless endings. For a moment, it is impossible to shake off the feeling of being in the tale of the good pipe from your head and chest. I'm not saying yes or no, I just want you to tell me if you want me to tell you the story of a consumed planet, a displaced people, and a dysfunctional family... And so on.
To set the stage, the story picks up where we left off. After the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Jake's (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri's (Zoe Saldaña) son, the family deals with grief as best they can. The two natural children and the two adoptive ones are still there, each playing a crucial role in the story's development. Lo'ak (Britain Dalton) has it the hardest. He blames himself for his brother's death. Only his good relationship with the most special of the Tulkun (the whales) seems to heal the wound. Spider (Jack Champion), in the role of a human among the Na'vi, is both the scapegoat, as a representative of all that is bad, and the ultimate key to possible understanding between species. For Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), in the role of a redeeming messiah with supernatural powers, it is the tough role of the only possible salvation beyond time. In eternity perhaps. Amen. This is regarding the family subplot.
At the highest and most colorful of levels, we continue with the primary confrontation between colonizers and natives, cowboys and Indians, exploiters and exploited, with a surprise: suddenly, there appears as a star novelty the very wild and dark ashes people commanded by Varang (Oona Chaplin) who, in their deep resentment towards their own kind, end up allied with the humans. They are traitors, but maybe not so much. And among the humans, or almost, it is important not to overlook the central role of Quaritch (Stephen Lang), now forever imprisoned in a Na'vi body. If they get lost or bored, don't blame me. Truly, there is more, much more. And we haven't even mentioned the inexplicable scene where Giovanni Ribisi's character shows up in the control room in his underwear. There is the Na'vi clan of the oceanic Metkayina with Kate Winslet/Ronal as co-leader, there are some fierce unseen squids, there are the previously mentioned Tulkun now turned into more decisive characters, there are the hunters of the latter with their deafening and lethal weaponry, and of course, there is Pandora as an inalienable space on par with the legendary and mystical Monument Valley itself.
Once again, the original scheme of interchangeable bodies or avatars that animated the saga's original idea, and which is nothing less than the title itself, disappears. This already happened in the previous installment. Now, definitively, the unique setting of Pandora as the space of the same dream prevails. When we first saw Avatar in 2009, we were faced with something new. And that, in a universe as transparent, cynical, and jaded as ours, was already a triumph. The confluence between photography and CGI placed us on a new frontier (although not necessarily the last). If the history of representation (whether in painting or in recorded images) could be described as an increasingly precise appropriation of human consciousness (perspective, movement, sound, color...), what James Cameron achieved then was to go beyond to build reality itself from within, from its vital possibility: hyperreality beyond reality and, pushing it, on the other side of consciousness itself. That is still there, and although the novelty is not so new anymore, so to speak, the reunion with the last refuge for 3-D pleasure seems as happy as it is indispensable.
The problems, we were saying, come not so much from a convoluted script with an appearance, only appearance, of complexity, which it also has, as from the inanity or incapacity of the characters to carve out a space, even a small one, in the viewer's heart. In other words, and to put it somewhat less cheesy, as much as the movie deals with big and profound concepts like forgiveness, understanding, or guilt, what truly transcends is a monotonous noise that does not embody, but only symbolizes or represents, that great and redundant apparatus of abstract nouns. In the end, and to the great annoyance of Cameron and almost everyone, Avatar: Fire and Ashes does not achieve what it explicitly sets out to do: that, as in Titanic or even Abyss, the story prevails over the unquestionable visual wonder (again). What remains is a random and recurring story that crushes myths (whether it's Abraham and his son Isaac, the sacrificed hero, the reconciliation of souls...) at a frantic pace and ends up confusing true emotion with endless frenzy. The tale of the good pipe.
Director: James Cameron. Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin. Duration: 195 minutes. Nationality: United States.