Starring Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Stephen Lang

Directed by James Cameron

Lightstorm Entertainment – in Cinemas Now

Still grieving the death of his son Neteyam, not only does Jake Sully have to take on yet another attack by the ‘Sky People’ and their massive ordnance, he’s got a family full of troublesome teens to wrangle; a pod of radicalised whales causing all sorts of trouble; the reconstituted Colonel Quaritch going Na’vi native; and that’s all before he encounters the dreaded Ash People and yet more baffling apostrophes.

Earlier this week, while the US President’s assertion that the late, loved – and truly great – film director, Rob Reiner had been suffering from ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ was teeth-clenchingly offensive, even by the Donald’s standards, the phrase came to mind last night as I staggered out of my local magic lantern palace after the full three hours and seventeen minutes of James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. I was trying to put a name to my punch drunk disorientation. But it’s obvious when you think about it. I was suffering from ‘Avatar Derangement Syndrome’.

I have now spent a full nine hours and eleven minutes on the planet Pandora. If I remember correctly it all started when the Resources Development Administration went there on a quest for the rare mineral Unobtanium, although I think what they actually found was a whole quarry full of Neverendingum. To be fair, I rather enjoyed the first outing back in 2009, as Jake learned the ways of the blue, four fingered apostrophe people. Thirteen years later I was still reasonably well-disposed to the Way of Water follow-up, even if it had put on thirty flabby minutes and the first hour was essentially the same Pandoran instructional video as in the original movie (only wetter), complete with very similar dollops of mawkish, patchouli-infused Gaian earth theory to round things off (although Pandora’s earth goddess is called Eywa, which, before I knew how it was spelt, kept reminding me of a rather inadequate Aiwa budget music centre I owned in the 1980s). However, there was a cracking sea battle at the climax, reminiscent of Titanic and The Abyss and so I forgave it, even if it did outstay its welcome.

Spool on another three years, and Mr Cameron, working his way through the elements, has arrived at Avatar – COLON! – Fire and Ash. To his credit, this one is only five minutes longer than its predecessor, but even so, I could feel the seconds of my life stretching out like temporal spaghetti falling into a black hole.

Part of the problem might be the five people credited with the story. It’s as if, rather than pick who had the best ideas, James just decided to keep everything. Story ideas come and go with the restlessness of an attention deficit disorder, usually just when they’re getting interesting. When Kiri (a creepily de-aged Sigourney Weaver as a sort of female Gaian Jesus) rallies Eywa to help Spider (Jackson Champion) breathe without his mask this strand makes a bid to be the emotional engine of the movie, only to be dropped as soon as the Abrahamic set-piece they were going for is done and dusted. Similarly, we are introduced to a new villain – Varang (Oona Chaplin) – the hissing, writhing, wild-eyed leader of the Ash People. She’s a feisty, sexy character who could really mix things up, given the chance, but just as we’ve got to know her she is relegated to a hollering savage, reminiscent of the worst depictions of Native Americans during the heyday of cowboy movies. And as for the whales… I have no idea what that was about at all.

While, thankfully, we aren’t subjected to the lengthy ‘Bluffers Guide to Pandora’ section that blighted the second movie, the denouement plays out like a virtual re-run of the sea battle at the end of Way of Water – complete with Jake’s family being held hostage.

Verdict: Avatar: Fire and Ash looks great, in a Roger Dean album cover sort of way, but it’s a lumbering mess of a movie which might have been a far tighter and more gripping experience had James Cameron picked one story and stuck with it, and come up with a different and less predictable final act. 5/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com