Avatar: Fire and Ash

January 23 – 29

NOTE SPECIAL SHOW TIMES!

Friday 1:30 & 7 pm
Saturday 7:00 pm
Sunday 1:30 & 7 pm
Monday 1:30 & 6:00 pm
Tuesday 6:00 pm
Wednesday 1:30 pm Only
Thursday 6:00 pm

Rated PG – 3hr 11min

Action / Fantasy

With Avatar: Fire and Ash, James Cameron takes audiences back to Pandora in an immersive new adventure with Marine turned Na’vi leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and the Sully family. Remaining on the cutting edge of visual effects, Fire and Ash repeats the narrative beats of its predecessors with its grand spectacle continuing to stoke one-of-a-kind thrills. Fire and Ash is about the limits of faith: Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are wrestling with the loss of their eldest son, Neteyam, who was killed in the previous film. Neytiri leans into her commitment to Eywa, the Great Mother – as does her adoptive daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who was birthed through miraculous means by the Na’vi avatar of a human scientist, Grace Augustine (also Weaver).

We get the immersive Avatar rush in the extraordinary action sequences, like one where Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his allies zip on those flying griffins through the industrial lattices of the military compound where the Rasta-haired surfer bro Spider (Jack Champion) is being held captive. (His biological father is the dastardly Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang in full-throttle mean machismo mode.) No one stages action with the blend of vastness and logistical detail that Cameron does. It’s as if we were watching mystic beasts from The Lord of the Rings fly through the sets of Blade Runner, and the miraculous thing is that not a moment of it feels staged. It’s a twisting-and-turning-in-the-air hurtling existential war.

James Cameron keeps upping the ante as Avatar: Fire And Ash, the third entry in the series, introduces a Na’vi clan that’s as selfish and violent as the invading humans. As before, the focus is on the strong emotional bonds between the characters as well as the spectacular battles on the land, underwater, and in the air. The movie is over three hours long and yet it doesn’t have a wasted moment.

Besides the breathtaking production design and art direction, the most striking thing about the movie are the performances. The Na’vi characters aren’t cartoons. They’re created using motion capture and other tech that transforms the human performances into the characters we see on screen. It’s all as visually rapturous as ever, and Cameron remains one of the best executioners of pure, adrenalized action spectacle who has ever stepped behind a camera to choreograph and orchestrate it. The world of Pandora continues to look and feel like nothing else you’re ever seen, and the director’s utilization of seamlessly immersive 3D is absolutely spectacular.

While the cast is strong throughout, two of the most striking are delivered by O’Neill and by Sigourney Weaver. O’Neill is ferocious as Varang, bending others to her will. And Weaver, age 76, plays 14-year-old Kiri, the adopted daughter of Jake and Neytiri. It should be noted that in her long career, Weaver has never turned her back on the science fiction genre, where she had her breakout role in Alien (1979). Avatar: Fire and Ash continues to offer striking visuals and compelling storytelling and should more than satisfy fans of the series