Jake and Neytiri’s family grapples with grief after Neteyam’s death, encountering a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe, the Ash People, who are led by the fiery Varang, as the conflict on Pandora escalates and a new moral focus emerges.
Chuck says:
When ‘L’Arrivee d’un train a La Ciotat” (“Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat”) was shown at the Lumiere Brothers studio in 1896, viewers apparently recoiled as they saw the locomotive pull in, certain that the engine coming towards them would do them harm. While that may seem like a silly notion to us, their reaction was likely a natural instinct, their brains not having been exposed to the medium before and unsure how to process it. Since then, filmmakers have been striving to make the filmgoing experience seem more lifelike, trying either to break the boundaries of the screen or adding depth to it. Gregg Toland’s deep focus technique was a step forward in providing directors with a means of utilizing background spaces while various 3-D techniques invented in the 1950’s were tiny steps towards making it seem the image was leaping off the screen.
However, the film stock itself provided limitations that could not be overcome. Yet, with the coming of digital technology, more advanced alterations could be made that would lead to producing not only a more life-like image on screen, but seemingly expand the depth of vision to the horizon. For better or worse, James Cameron and his technicians at Lightstorm Entertainment have perfected this process.
It’s on full display in the director’s latest magnum opus, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” a unique visual entertainment, equally fascinating and frustrating. Without question, the sights it contains are incredible, the film a technological marvel that points towards a radical new way of rendering images on the big screen. The planet Pandora’s seductive blues and greens prove hypnotic, various fields of vision obvious, plants seemingly reaching into your lap, arrows appearing to whiz towards your face, and points of action near and far are plainly visible and easy to see.
But there are drawbacks as well. The many battle scenes between the Na’vi, their united enemies the Sky People (humans) and the Ash People, are problematic. The frantic movement is too much to take in, overwhelming in its speed. Equally troubling are moments when there are multiple skirmishes occurring in the same frame; it’s impossible to keep track of all that’s occurring. As to the many sequences in which the natives are flying on their banshees, the viewer on their backs along with them, their movements are too quick, the result a sense of vertigo. Upon getting up to leave the theater on two occasions – it three hours and 17 minutes – I felt dizzy and a tiny bit nauseous.
Like those French viewers in 1896, our brains have yet to adjust in order to process this new version of the familiar medium. How long such an adjustment might take is hard to say, but I suspect it would take seeing a steady diet of movies made with the process before it occurs. Obviously, as cost prohibitive as these films are to make, it’s unlikely that a consistent stream of them will be produced, so these productions and our reactions to them will remain unique.
As for the story in “Ash,” it’s as mundane as its presentation is groundbreaking, a repetitious barrage of overblown actions sequences held together with the most threadbare of plots. That being said, it does provide some pleasant surprises and the most interesting development of its characters than any of the previous entries. Mind you, that’s a very low bar.
The human soldier turned Na’vi, Sully (Sam Worthington), his bride, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), their children, both biological and adopted, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Bliss), Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion), have taken refuge with the Metkayina people, who have a mystical connection with the water. This proves to be a mistake for the group’s leader, Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), his pregnant wife, Ronal (Kate Winslet) and their people as Sully’s enemy, Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who has been resurrected as an avatar as well, is hot on his trail, engaging in a scorched earth campaign to bring him in.
Much like the two previous films, for the large part this is a chase movie that never seems to end. The battle scenes, of which there are far too many, stretch to the point of tedium and eye fatigue (I closed my eyes at numerous times, it was just too much), while the story itself could have been resolved in a nice neat two-hour package were Cameron not so self-indulgent.
That being said, the relationship between Quaritch and his son Spider emerges as the most emotionally resonant and rewarding in the movie. Lang’s a good enough actor that he’s still able to convey genuine affection and disdain despite the many digital filters he’s acting through. Other highlights are the addition of Varang (Oona Chaplin), leader of the Ash people, who proves to be a hissable villain, while an escape sequence in which Scully breaks out with the aid of a massive plow driven by marine biologist Ian Garvin (Jemaine Clement) was memorable. This is primarily because I could follow it without getting eye strain.
One of the most remarkable things about the “Avatar” series are the evident advancements made in digital imaging from the first film to “Ash.” The 2009 feature, groundbreaking in its day, looks primitive now. Just how this process will evolve and be used in the next two series’ entries, slated for 2027 and 2029, remains to be seen. And while they will likely prove visually impressive, I can’t help but worry that the ghost in Cameron’s vast machine, his preference for the technical over the human, will continue to be its greatest flaw.
2 1/2 Stars
