Avatar Fire and Ash review: Pandora opens up once again, urging us to choose humanity and peace in an increasingly gun-blazing world!

James Cameron’s third Avatar instalment, Fire and Ash is exhausting yet emotionally earnest in waging a war to keep humanity alive in a world that increasingly romanticises the idea of “kill or be killed”.

Faith, especially in India, is often something we inherit before we fully understand it. Hence, for me growing up in a Hindu household that welcomed debate about God and belief, yet never forgot to light an incense stick in the morning or evening, faith was never rigid, it was lived, questioned, and felt. Perhaps that is why James Cameron’s Avatar universe has always felt quietly fascinating to me. At its core, it stages a conversation that feels deeply familiar which is not about science vs God, but faith vs progress, eastern spirituality brushing up against western logic.

Pandora is imagined as a world humans seek after destroying Earth, a place so rich in community, rooted in spirituality, where connection with nature is sacred, worshipped through Eywa, andAmrita is found in sea. Look closely, and Pandora begins to resemble home as multiple tribes, almost like different worlds, coexist under a shared spiritual consciousness. In that sense, Avatar has never been distant fantasy; it has always felt personal, and more so now as Cameron confirmed that the idea of turning into blue skinned Na'vi's did come from Indian mythology.

In Avatar Fire and Ash, not much has changed on the surface. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who went from marine to Na’vi, remains the protector of the Na’vi, still locked in long drawn conflict with Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), now resurrected as a Na’vi avatar. As human greed, masked as progress continues its attempt to colonise Pandora, what Fire and Ashdoes attempt, however, is to deepen this world further, less by changing the conflict and more by diving deep into it.

Earlier films framed the Na’vi different from humans; they were someone we could learn from as understanding the Na’vi ways of the world would mean for humans to recognise their own failures that led to Earth’s destruction. But this chapter turns inward. It asks whether the Na’vi themselves are immune to the dangers of blind faith. It questions pacifism - when does it protect life, and when does it endanger it? At what point does survival demand resistance? After all could praying save you from inevitable war?

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The film opens heavy with dead bodies of trauma and grief. The death of Neteyam, the Sullys’ firstborn, still haunts the family. Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) is visibly broken, her rage simmering beneath her sorrow, while Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) carries guilt that feels too heavy for someone his age. As the threat of Quaritch and human colonisation looms, a new force enters Pandora, the Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash People, led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). This tribe has lost faith entirely, as for them, survival is simple and brutal either kill or be killed, as compassion has no place here. Adding further tension to this is Spider (Jack Champion), the human boy, equivalent of Mowgli, raised among the Na’vi. Innocent and desperate to belong, he unintentionally becomes a liability when he learns to breathe Pandora’s air without human tech. This discovery could allow humans to inhabit Pandora without avatars, a terrifying shortcut to instant colonisation.

Yet for all its raised stakes, Fire and Ash stumbles slightly under the weight of repetition. Cameron’s long-standing critique of colonisation remains powerful, but it doesn’t evolve enough here. For newcomers, the film is immersive and emotionally clear, designed so you don’t need prior knowledge to enter Pandora. And while it’s great that each part of Avatar works as a standalone film, but for those who have returned to this world again and again, the beats feel too familiar, almost ritualistic. There’s comfort in that as you go in expecting to discover more about Pandora but it is also tiring as the villains remain the same; the same style battle is still being fought on the same moral ground.

And yet, despite its length and familiar rhythms, this is a world I’m willing to return to every time. Because in an era where war is no longer a last resort but a romanticised solution, Avatar dares to imagine a civilisation that still chooses humanity. A world deeply wounded, scarred by cruelty and bleeding from humanity’s pursuit of power disguised as curiosity, yet one that still believes pacifism is not weakness, and that violence is justified only when survival leaves no other choice.

Ultimately, AvatarFire and Ashreminds us that the real battle isn’t always between opposing ideologies. It’s internal. You can have eyes and still not truly see. That’s why, in Pandora, love isn’t expressed as “I love you,” but as “I see you.” And perhaps that is the film’s most radical act of faith, one that makes its commentary more necessary than ever today.

Avatar Fire and Ash is running in theatres near you!

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