Movie Review: Wonder and war in 'Avatar: Fire and Ash'

When I came down with a cold the day after I saw the third and latest “Avatar” film, “Fire and Ash,” I half-wondered if I had picked it up on Pandora.

The promise of Cameron’s 3D trilogy has always been immersion: immersion in a science-fiction world, in technological wonder, in a maybe future of movies. “Avatar” is almost more a place to go than a movie to see.

Still, it’s now been two decades since Cameron set off on this blue-tinted quest. The sheen of newness is off, or at least less pronounced, with new technological advances to contend with. “Fire and Ash” is running with a behind-the-scenes video about how performance capture was used during the film’s making. The implicit message is: No, this isn’t AI.

The “Avatar” films, with their visual-effects wizardry and clunky revisionist Western storytelling, have always felt, most of all, like an immersion in a dream of James Cameron’s. The idea of these movies, after all, first came to Cameron, he has said, in a bioluminescent vision decades ago. At their best, the “Avatar” movies have felt like an otherworldly stage for Cameron to juggle so many of the things — hulking weaponry, ecological wonder, foolhardy human arrogance — that have marked his movies.

“Fire and Ash,” at well more than three hours, is our longest stay yet on Pandora and the one most likely to make you ponder why you came here, in the first place. These remain epics of craft and conviction. You can feel Cameron’s deep devotion to the dynamics of his central characters, even when his interest outstrips our own.

That’s especially true in “Fire and Ash,” which, following the deep-sea, family-focused part two, “The Way of Water,” pivots to a new chapter of culture clash. It introduces a violent rival Na’vi clan whose rageful leader, Varang , partners with Stephen Lang’s booming Col. Miles Quaritch and the human colonizers.

For those who have closely followed the “Avatar” saga, I suspect “Fire and Ash” will be a rewarding experience. Quaritch, Pandora’s answer to Robert Duvall’s Bill Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now,” remains a ferociously captivating character. And the introduction of Chaplin’s Varang gives this installment an electricity that the previous two were missing