The problem with good ideas is that they are to some extent definitive. The first “Avatar” had the freshness of a certain invention: the creation of a moon, Pandora, for which James Cameron mobilized all contemporary technology. There, people lived happily, in communion with nature, but full of resources adapted to the use of 3D and everything else.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” clarified the problems that Cameron wanted to raise: Earth, ours, is an exhausted planet, without much chance of survival. What is the action of militaristic humans? Invade another star, full of life.
From then on we know that the fight does not take place only between Jake Sully and his family against the avatar of Colonel Miles Quaritch, his troops and their weapons. From the start of “Avatar: Fire and Ashes”, aka “Avatar 3”, we know that the inhabitants of Pandora will have to move sky, earth and water if they want to survive the invader.
This already implies a certain monotony, which the problems of the Sully family find difficult to overcome. This moon has already been explored to its fullest in 3D, so on this point the film doesn’t have much to offer.
The whole adventure of bringing together living characters and having them interact with the landscape now seems to have become routine. What to create? An ending full of adventure, capable of redeeming the wear and tear of adventure itself, as it becomes clear that we humans are a destructive scourge.
While we may agree with the general idea, acknowledge sympathy, etc., the fact is that the details are somewhat obvious. It is necessary to defend Pandora and her people. For this, it seems that all genres, or almost, are available: the western, of course, is frequently called upon to collaborate, but not only that.
Since humanity is not the only one living with evil, here we add the People of Ash, a somewhat piratical and resentful people, who hate the Sully family and their people – it doesn’t matter why. Varang, its terrible leader, is perhaps the most inventive feature of the film. In her irrational fury, she resembles the Redskins of the Wild West – as depicted in the movies, of course. Varang sometimes seems like a skinny girl with a gangular problem ready to jump on the neck of any enemy – and anyone can be her enemy.
With or without Varang, James Cameron mobilizes all his troops for the already predictable epilogue of the trilogy. He does it with the talent and application that we know him to have.
However, this series of conflicts in which Pandora fights for survival, both against militaristic Earthlings and wanton Varangians, contains all sorts of variations, an endless back and forth of alternatives, throughout the course of an hour or more of film. The battles continue on land, sea and air, with or without robots, with vengeful colonels, a general giving absurd orders, Chief Varang, just like Miles Quaritch, challenging and confronting every possible enemy he encounters.
During this time, defeats and victories, conquests and disasters alternate: more or less all the alternatives are presented to the spectator. The talent is obvious, it’s true, but it is difficult, despite this, to find greatness in the midst of such mechanical conflicts. Hence perhaps the attempt to compensate for this critical moment in the series with a hyperbolic battle from which the spectator nevertheless emerges much more exhausted than happy and much more indifferent than moved by the action developed.
Finally: at certain points during the screening, I took off my 3D glasses. You barely feel the difference with the two-dimensional format. It’s simply more difficult to follow the subtitles: the distressing fate of digital 3D now seems like an additional burden that “Avatar 3” must shoulder.
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