Audio English, Subtitles German

Jake, Neytiri, and the rest of the Sully family are mourning the loss of their eldest son. They’ve finally been accepted into the Water clan, but aside from the looming threat of the human RDA forces, another stressor is preventing them from finally settling down. Their adopted son, Spider, still needs a rebreather to survive in Pandora’s atmosphere, and they only have one backup battery. On the way to fix this problem, an attack by a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe splits the family up and drags the Sully kids into a life-threatening situation…

This third entry in the Avatar series leaves me with divided feelings. Not in the art department though: the CGI is marvelous, the world design still great and the action sequences breathtaking. No, my main problem is that you can clearly tell that Fire and Ash and Way of Water were conceived as a single work and later split into two movies. Aside from introducing a new MacGuffin, this movie feels like Way of Water all over again. It sticks to the same setting, does similar things with its characters and introduces too little new things to keep you amazed by the world of Pandora. Especially the last part hurts, as the Ash People, the new Na´vi faction, are quite interesting, but ultimately underdeveloped. You can still have a good time with this movie for the spectacle alone, but don´t expect the same magic its predecessors managed to elicit. (SaL)