Review: AVATAR: FIRE & ASH

     The best thing I can say about Avatar: Fire & Ash (the 3rd film in the franchise) is that it looks fantastic. The movie is probably around 95% special f/x, meaning it basically just looks like a computer animated film, but it's definitely one of the best looking movies I've ever seen. There's so many special f/x in this that it’s just a visual feast of layer upon layer of imagery: flying birds in front of floating islands in front of a majestic sky filled with multiple suns and moons and gorgeous, puffy clouds. This thing is stacked with special f/x and it all mostly fits seamlessly together in a fairly cohesive way. And these special f/x aren't, like, typical, been-there-done-that special f/x you see in movies all the time. This is state of the art, unbelievably vivid and super colorful stuff. I didn't even watch this at a movie theater, I watched it on a non-4K TV and it still looked downright majestic. I remember, years ago when Michael Mann's Miami Vice movie came out, one reviewer mentioned that watching it felt like looking through a window because it was shot with a new HD camera. Watching Avatar: Fire & Ash kind of gave me that same feeling that, yeah, movie technology at this moment is pretty revolutionary. There's a catch to all of this of course, though. The reason Avatar: Fire & Ash looks like it took a thousand computer programmers ten years to make it...is because it did! And it's also one of the most expensive movies ever made, so much so that even after grossing almost $1.5 billion dollars at the global box office, director James Cameron said that it didn't make enough money so they might not make a planned 4th film. 

    While Avatar: Fire & Ash looks amazing and is super detailed, super colorful, and wonderful to stare at in awe...it's also 3 hours and 17 minutes long. By the time the 3 hour mark hits, I doubt you even care how great the movie looks. You're probably thinking: get me outta here!

    The original Avatar came out way back in 2009 and the sequel, Avatar: Way of Water, came out in 2022. I don't remember a lot from either film to be honest, except for the fact that there were blue aliens riding flying beasts in some other world. There was also the U.S. military trying to kill the aliens and take their jewels, and a human that "joined" the aliens, hence why I vaguely remember thinking Avatar was just a rip-off of Dances with Wolves, which was also pretty much just a copy of the Pocahontas/John Smith story. I do remember the final battle sequence from Avatar: Way of Water being fairly exciting, which isn't a total surprise considering James Cameron is a master at action. 

    So here we are at #3. What's different? What's new? What's the point?

    The basic premise in Avatar: Fire & Ash is that the U.S. military is again trying to kill the blue aliens. The only thing new in this 3rd entry is the villainous Ash alien group that have white skin and live in tents next to a volcano. The action is kick started when the Ash alien group attacks a travelling convoy flying through the sky and there's an exciting battle. The big bad, Varang, is probably the best part of this new entry. She's evil, nefarious, cruel...and then just ends up sleeping with the U.S. military dude Quaritch, who was the big bad in #1 and #2 (he died but then became a blue alien along the way). A better movie would just have Varang and her gang (who are so similar to that Native American villain tribe in The Last of the Mohicans) fighting the good guys and that's it. Nope! We have to, again, insert the U.S. military into this film in a way that makes this play out exactly like the 1st and 2nd movie. At this rate, why even bother to make a 3rd feature if it's just the same? At least the 2nd one had a new ocean tribe. This fire tribe is barely there and instantly merged into the deja-vu plot. 

    The saving grace in all of this is that the action scenes are entertaining and wild. Sure, this film is the silliest thing you might ever watch, but at least it's fun to see a bunch of chase and battle scenes in a lush, tropical paradise. After awhile, though, watching any of this will test your limits. It took me 2 days to watch this movie in two 1.5 hour chunks and I was still bored for a lot of it. One problem is that the actual family story isn't all that interesting. Beyond the visuals, the dialogue, characters, and plot are perfunctory at best. This is bare bones story telling: bad guy fight good guy, good guy saves day. There is some sort of naturalistic, environmental religious mumbo-jumbo going on with a "mother earth" that the aliens worship...but none of that is intriguing in the least. 

    I think making two Avatar films was fine...but making a 3rd feels like just putting salt in a wound. It's too much. James Cameron is one of the best living directors still working and still making big movies that people watch. His resume is legendary and will go down in the annuls of film history as one of the greatest, so it's just kind of sad to see him wasting his time rehashing things. Avatar: Fire & Ash is basically just Avatar: Way of Water with a few slight differences. I'd rather see Cameron doing something new, something different, because hell, he doesn't have too much time left, and I'd hate to see such a creative person end on a note like this, making a film we've seen before that doesn't need to exist. **

Review: SCREAM 7

     The original Scream movie came out on December 20th, 1996, so technically it's the 30th anniversary of its arrival. Even with 30 years past, it's still pretty glaring that there's the 7th installment of a franchise and they didn't try to trick you by calling it something else. Nope, the 7 is right there in the title. Yes, they're proclaiming to the world: there have been 7 of these movies already. I mean...at this point, after 7 installments of a film franchise, does originality even matter anymore? Play the hits! Right? Wrap yourself up in a blanket of nostalgia. And, for the others that might watch Scream 7 that are too young to remember or even have been alive in 1996 when the original hit, or in 1997 when the sequel hit, or 2000 when the 3rd hit...if it's not nostalgia, then is it just...this is a bloody slasher pic, they're all the same, enjoy horny teens being butchered! We know this is what you all want.

    There can't be that many 7th entries in a film franchise, can there? The only ones are horror and superheroes. There's definitely been more than 7 Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Superman, Spider-man, and Batman movies...which means that 7 Scream films in 30 years isn't shocking or gasp-inducing or anything. What is kind of surprising is that this 7th edition is going to end up being the highest grossing installment (inflation not factored into the equation, which perhaps makes this point ultimately moot). What's also surprising is that, 7 movies in, 30 years past, we still have a movie with a few of the originals: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Matthew Lillard, and Kevin Williamson. It's also surprising that these four actually want anything to do with this franchise at this late stage. Is it stalled careers, barren bank accounts...I mean, they're not doing this for the art, are they? Not that a slasher pic is art, although, at least in my mind, the original Scream is a masterpiece, thanks to not only one of the greatest scripts ever written, but thanks to a bunch of fantastic performances by the B-crew of lesser stars that peaked exponentially for one film only (Cox, arguably, was the one star that was in something else more famous at the time). 

    So what do we have here, now, with Scream 7? What is this? What are we doing? Why does this exist? And do you care? 

    If you look at the Friday the 13th films, they were released consistently every year for almost a decade. The 1st one came out in 1980, and the 7th came out in 1988. Scream disappeared for a long time after the 3rd entry. There was an 11 year gap between 3 and 4. Then there was another 11 year gap between 4 and 5 (Scream 4 was the lowest grossing entry and, at $38 million domestic, a complete disappointment). The last 3 Scream movies have all been released in the last 4 years. And since Scream 7 will be the highest grossing and a total success, plus add the fact that Ellison's Paramount loves franchises and beating dead horses to milk every bit of cash out of something barely worthwhile, this franchise is going to return and return sooner than you might think or want. The problem arises with the fact that...these films are all pretty much the same. What can you do different? Or...do you even have to do anything different?

    Scream 7 was co-written and directed by Kevin Williamson, the original creator of the franchise and writer of the first 2 films (and also the creator of Dawson's Creek...though, literally, he never did anything good again after his initial one-two punch of triumph). Neve Campbell is back as the main character (she sat out part 6 because she asked for more money than they wanted to give her). She's happily living in a suburban town with a husband who's the chief of police and a 16 year old daughter. The opening of the film is typical Scream territory; some cute, young kids are butchered by Ghost Face after receiving a phone call. The catch this time is that the opening takes place in the same house from the original film but now it's an Air B&B murder house! So meta, right? And, I suppose, it's fairly creative, although not awesomely original, which is kind of the big problem to this film. It's an entertaining slasher pic, it has a few good jump scares, it's an easy watch, it's what-you-expect, but any kind of shockingly great originality is totally absent. It's just another murder-mystery horror flick, been there done that.

    Once the fresh, new murders occur, Neve Campbell's life is turned upside down when Ghost Face arrives in her town to threaten her daughter and her daughter's friends. Ghost Face is revealed early on to be Stu, played by Matthew Lillard, who was killed in the original film. But...wait! He's dead! Or is he? Or is it a fake? I think this entry in the franchise is definitely helped by the return of Lillard, who brings his usual zany energy to the role and is at least something fresh added to the mix. 

    After all the usual elements are in place, we get the usual Scream picture. The one difference is that the kills are, for whatever reason (maybe Williamson loves the Final Destination movies), especially gruesome this time around. We get a head on a spike with a mouth spewing blood, a stomach knifed open with a pile of guts splattering onto the ground, and a slow-mo knife through the head kill. And while the script is light years away from the great original script, Williamson as a director at least knows his horror movie tropes: his use of suspense, shadows, and movement. There's Ghost Face appearing and disappearing in the background. A typical suburban home becomes a terrifying maze with construction plastic tarps amidst a remodel. 

    Neve Campbell is too good of an actress to be in this type of a movie, because she's acting heartfelt and emotional when, hey, this is a frigging midnight Grindhouse type of a flick, right? Joel McHale, who was once on E's The Soup (remember?), is pretty good as the cop husband. Neve Campbell's daughter, the new scream queen, is played by Isabel May. She's pretty forgettable honestly, but does a decent enough job to not be glaringly problematic. There are two supposed comedy sidekicks, Courtney Cox's TV assistants. Sadly, they get nothing amusing to say or do in this film. Which is a bit of a problem because the comedy and "rules" of the original are kind of what made that film pop and made it unique. This 7th entry is not unique. That's not exactly why it's gotten bad reviews from pretty much everyone. The reason it's gotten bad reviews is because of the ending killer reveal. It's a disappointment. But as for the totality of it all: this is the 7th one and we've all been here before. You want hot babes running for their lives, being scared, and a creepy killer in a ghost costume hiding in the shadows and picking people off one by one. This film has got you covered. If you're a sicko and like that sort of thing, then you can't really go wrong with this one. These films aren't going to get better. They're just going to chug along just the same as always. And someday, if they're gone, admit it: you'll fucking miss 'em. **1/2

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2026

1- WERWULF: Robert Eggers' movies are always highly anticipated. I had heard that he was going to do an adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' next, but he's making this werewolf movie first. It has the same cast as 'Nosferatu': Aaron-Taylor Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, and Willem Dafoe. It's set in England in the 13th century. Sadly, it's not supposed to come out until Christmas day.

2- THE ODYSSEY: This is one of the big dogs of 2026, the newest from director Christopher Nolan after he swept the Oscars a few years ago. The trailer to this already came out and it looks good, albeit the special f/x creatures are only glimpsed at. Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Jon Bernthal star. Nolan is one of the very few directors that make films people actually go to see in theaters, so this should be all anyone is talking about come July. 

3- SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY: It seems that after every recent Marvel movie comes out, everybody online debates the death of Marvel movies in terms of relevance, box office, and enjoyment. Spider-Man movies are bullet proof, though. This will be a giant smash and hopefully just as fun and entertaining as the first three. The new additions to the regular cast include Sadie Sink (who's rumored to be playing Gwen Stacey) and Tramell Tillman from 'Severance.' 

4- FLOWERVALE STREET: Currently, David Robert Mitchel is my favorite writer/director. It's a travesty that he hasn't made a movie since the highly entertaining and bonkers 'Under the Silver Lake' way back in 2018. And, shockingly, he's only made three films. The other two were 'It Follows' and 'The Myth of the American Sleepover.' He's back with a film about a suburban street in the 1980's where strange things occur. No, I don't know what that means, but I did see a picture of the film that had dinosaurs in it. Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway star.

5- DUNE: PART 3: This is apparently going to be the last 'Dune' film that Denis Villeneuve directs. It's an adaptation of the second 'Dune' book, a book that's so short it was originally serialized in a sci-fi magazine. The book was also savaged by readers when it first came out. The reason? Well, I started to read it and was bored to tears and didn't bother to finish it. The book picks up years after the first book when Paul Atreides is the ruler of the planet. A group hires an assassin to infiltrate Paul's ranks and murder him. That's literally the whole plot. I'm guessing the film will add something to more to this plot. The same cast is back but Robert Pattinson has been added. I adored the first 'Dune' film and thought the second one was so-so. I'm intrigued, though, and Villeneuve is a visual master.

6- RESIDENT EVIL: Zack Cregger is the new, 'hot' horror director. 'Barbarian' was a word-of-mouth hit and 'Weapons' was a surprise box office success. He's making a new 'Resident Evil' film, but he swears that this time it'll be more like the video games. I loved 'Weapons' and can't wait to see what he'll do with a zombie flick. 

7- THE HUNGER GAMES: SUNRISE ON THE REAPING: This 'Hunger Games' book is one of the best in the series. It's a prequel, showing Haymitch's time competing in the games (Woody Harrelson played him in the original films). The trailer already came out, and it looks fantastic. Francis Lawrence, who directed the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th 'Hunger Games' films, is back at the helm. The main stars are unknowns, but the cast includes Ralph Fiennes as President Snow, Jesse Plemmons, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, and Maya Hawke. 

8- AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY: It's been a while since the last 'Avengers' movie. 'Avengers: Endgame' was the last one and still holds the record for biggest opening weekend, at $357 million. That was in 2019. Marvel, of course, stupidly killed off Iron-Man, and they haven't really been the same ever since. Nothing matters, though, since both Chris Evans as Captain America and Iron-Man are back in this one. Robert Downey, Jr. is playing Dr. Doom in this, though, not Iron-Man. How that will work when Dr. Doom wears a mask is one of the year's great questions. They could conceivably just say Robert Downey, Jr. is playing Dr. Doom and yet you might never know. The first trailer of this was released and it showed that Chris Evans is back, even though Evans had previously said he was done playing the role (the new Captain America in the Marvel movies and TV shows is Anthony Mackie). The rest of the usual players are back: Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic, Sebastian Stan as Bucky, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, etc. Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk is not in this, though, for unknown reasons. The Russo brothers are directing this. They previously directed 'Captain America: Winter Soldier,' 'Captain America: Civil War,' 'Avengers: Infinity War,' and 'Avengers: Endgame.' They know what they're doing in terms of 'Avengers' films. Their last film was one of the biggest bombs in the history of film, though, Netflix's 'The Electric State.' I'm guessing this one will be a huge hit. Whether or not it's actually a good movie is questionable, though. 

9- WUTHERING HEIGHTS: Emeral Fennell is back after getting everyone talking about her last film, the wild and shocking 'Saltburn.' She's adapting Emily Bronte's classic 'Wuthering Heights.' It stars Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie. Fennell's movies are always acid-laced and weird, so I'm curious how much she'll stray from the book. The trailer makes it look like it keeps the plot but has psychedelic-style visuals. The book is pretty much just a standard romance. It also has a great tagline: 'Frankenstein meets Barbie.'

10- THE MANDALORIAN & GROGU: Is the pandemic finally over? Because we're getting the first 'Star Wars' film since the pandemic, the first 'Avengers' movie since the pandemic, and the first David Robert Mitchell film since the pandemic. It is crazy that there hasn't been a 'Star Wars' movie since 2019. You can blame Disney+ for that, as they've been putting out 'Star Wars' TV shows every year. This new film even started as a TV show, 'The Mandalorian,' which was good but nothing great. This means that this movie is basically just season 4. Jon Favreau is directing. You know, I never in a million years thought the writer/director/star of 'Swingers' would eventually end up making a 'Star Wars' movie. But I'm happy, because a new 'Star Wars' movie is actually going to be in a movie theater, the first time in seven fucking years. 

THE BEST FILMS OF 2025

1- ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

2- MARTY SUPREME

3- IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT

4- EDDINGTON

5- WEAPONS

6- NO OTHER CHOICE

7- COMPANION

8- HELL OF A SUMMER

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2025 REVISITED

 1- TREY PARKER, MATT STONE & KENDRICK LAMAR SLAVERY MOVIE:  This didn't come out and it still doesn't have a release date. The rumored title is "Whitney Springs." 

2- PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON FILM: "One Battle After Another" was the best movie I saw in 2025, though I have yet to see everything. Right now, it's the favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars. The thing I loved about this movie was the energy. I felt a similar feeling watching "Pulp Fiction." It's weird, thrilling, alive, new, fresh, bold, and totally engrossing. And Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Benecio Del Toro all give excellent performances in this. Just an all-around great film. ****

3- JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH: I did a short review of this. ***

4- SUPERMAN: I did a short review of this. *1/2

5- FRANKENSTEIN: This movie is really good until the monster enters the picture, then it becomes silly and un-scary. The whole thing does look really expensive and cool. Maybe I'm just tired of this story constantly being re-done. It's good, not great. **1/2

6- EDDINGTON: I did a short review of this. ***1/2

7- 28 YEARS LATER: Reviewed. **1/2

8- MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING: Reviewed. **

 

9- PREDATOR: BADLANDS: This is a fun, entertaining film, although totally light years away from what I'd consider a "Predator" movie. I get it: they can't keep doing what they were doing for the franchise to remain fresh, but it doesn't mean I miss the old days. **1/2

10- THE RUNNING MAN: This movie isn't awful, but it's a total disappointment considering I like director Edgar Wright. I don't know what the fuck happened with this, but it feels like the studio re-cut it and re-did the ending or something. In the end it just doesn't work. *1/2