James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash runs 198 minutes and carries a tagline promising that “the world of Pandora will change forever.” The third film in the series delivers on the scale, if not always on the promise. It is a big, often beautiful, frequently exhausting movie that keeps adding tribes to a world it already filled.
Trailer, via Avatar.
The Mangkwan and Varang
The new threat is the Mangkwan, an aggressive Na’vi clan led by Varang, played by Oona Chaplin. Cameron has said Varang’s people suffered “an incredible hardship” that “hardened” her, and that she “will do anything for them, even things that we would consider to be evil.” Chaplin makes that read as grief with a blade in it. The film’s best passages belong to her and to Stephen Lang’s Quaritch, who teaches the Mangkwan to use firearms and then begins a relationship with Varang.
Jake, Neytiri, and Spider
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña return as Jake and Neytiri, still grieving their eldest son Neteyam. Saldaña has said Neytiri becomes a “full-blown racist” toward humans, and the film does not soften that. The stranger thread is Spider, played by Jack Champion, who nearly dies when his mask loses power and is saved when Kiri infuses his body with mycelia. Sigourney Weaver’s Kiri also learns she was born from Eywa but is blocked from connecting with her.
The film’s most interesting ideas, ranked by how much they matter:
- Spider’s new ability to breathe Pandora’s air, which scientists Norm Spellman and Max Patel believe could be reverse engineered for other humans.
- Kiri’s blocked connection to Eywa, the richest unresolved thread.
- The Quaritch–Varang alliance, which drives the back half.
What the delays bought
With a budget estimated at $350 million, Fire and Ash is one of the most expensive films ever made. It began shooting in New Zealand on September 25, 2017, wrapped in late December 2020, and premiered at the Dolby Theatre on December 1, 2025. The underwater performance capture work Cameron delayed the film for is genuinely there on screen.
But length is not depth. At 198 minutes, the film keeps introducing clans and mechanics while its emotional core — a family that has already lost a child — gets crowded out by the next set piece.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is worth seeing for Chaplin and for the craft. It is not the leap the tagline sells.
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