The Avatar franchise has been known for its impressive visuals ever since the beginning in 2009, and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is no exception.  

But for the first time since 2009, the franchise has seen something even more impressive reemerge: character development…well, when it wants too anyways.

The third film in the franchise follows the Sully family (Sam Worthington as Jake, Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Britain Dalton as Lo’ak and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) look for a way to return Spider (Jack Champion) to RDA, as his oxygen masks are running low, which will eventually kill him. 

Along the way, the family meets two new tribes. The Windtraders help transport the family to the RDA using jelly-like balloons on airships, but don’t make it very far as the Ash People attack, separating the family and sending the film on the familiar trope of “someone gets captured, battle ensues, person is freed and the cycle repeats.” 

The first two films focus on Jake as the main character and narrator without giving the other characters much room to be interesting. Thankfully, the third film remedies that. 

Lo’ak takes over as the narrator and gets room to become a leader in his own right, reeling from the trauma caused by “Avatar: The Way of Water’s” ending.  

I’m not one to be attached to the Avatar characters, but multiple times I felt bad for Lo’ak after being silenced for speaking the truth and considering suicide due to the guilt he feels. 

The trauma from the previous film’s ending carries over to Jake and Neytiri as well, but it’s not nearly as in-depth as Lo’ak’s experience. 

Speaking of Jake and Neytiri, both characters act extremely out of character in the film when it comes to Spider. To avoid spoilers, let’s just say the motto of “Sully’s stick together” from the last film isn’t all that important anymore. 

It also doesn’t help that a pivotal scene involving the trio at the most emotional they’ve ever had to be in the franchise simply doesn’t portray that in their performances. 

The other character that gets a lot of character development is Kiri. Since her introduction, I’ve been fascinated by her connection to Eywa and their relationship.  

“Fire and Ash” builds upon their relationship more and dives further into the religious aspects of Pandora, but not for all that long before the plot falls apart. 

As mentioned earlier, the loop of characters getting captured returns once again to bore audiences to death. Making matters worse, the end battle of “The Way of Water” repeats itself with more characters. 

Having the plot fall into the same cycle further isolates the audience from having an attachment to any character because of how predictable the action is. This cycle harms new characters the most. 

The Ash People are led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), who doesn’t get any room to develop as a new character besides being Colonel Quaritch’s (Stephen Lang) friend with benefits in the hunt for Sully. 

It’s disappointing to see a new character and entire faction get reduced to an RDA pawn because of how interesting the lore of their culture is.  

Sure, there’s a minute of exposition about how the nearby volcano burned the forest and Varang mastered the flame to help her people survive, but that’s all we get. 

“Fire and Ash” is a film of development, whether it be for positive character development like Lo’ak and Kiri or the plot’s development regressing into an all too familiar trope. 

The film still gets the fundamentals mostly right from acting, save for one scene, and visuals, but the plot still is predictable. The only saving grace is the new scraps of character development found throughout the runtime, which just barely make it better than the last film. 

However, if the plot continues to fall into the same cycle for every film, there won’t be much to praise Avatar for besides its visuals. 

Rating: 3.5/5 

Luke Brewer can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].