Film Review - Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Avatar Fire and Ash is the third in the Avatar series and is again directed by James Cameron, the story takes place almost immediately after the events of 2022’s The Way of Water as Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and Lo’ak (Britian Dalton) are mourning the loss of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) at the end of the last movie but Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is still on their trail and this time he has a powerful and dangerous new ally in Varang (Oona Chaplin) head of the Mangkwan clan.

I have been looking forward to this movie all year as I am a big Avatar fan, the first two movies I go back to fairly often especially the Way of Water and everything I’ve seen of this movie in the previews for it looked even better but could this burn bright be another pile of ash like so many third movies in a series.

Happily the Fire burns bright here as this is a fantastic cinematic experience, I barely felt the 197 minute runtime except maybe towards the end and I sat there having a great time on Pandora once more, Cameron’s direction is as confident and assured as ever and the action sequences he creates here are just amazing to behold, 2 in particular are some of the best action scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie and reminded me more than once of Return of the Jedi.

Speaking of Return of the Jedi, this movie is very much the Jedi of the Avatar series and I do not mean this as a knock against the movie I mean it in the sense that like Jedi it repeats a lot of beats from the first two films and it still delivered a great time at the movies with a fantastic new villain, terrific action sequences and a storyline that wraps up the main story beats well enough to make me happy.

Something that also made me happy was the quality of the villains, Lang is as good as ever while Chaplin is mesmerizing as Varang with the way she moves, the way she walks and the way she uses the eyes of the character to hypnotize you and her use of the fire is very memorable, Edie Falco gets more to do here and is also very good with every line out of her mouth sounding almost venomous at times while Brendan Cowell is good also as the whale hunting captain.

And lastly the 3D here is sensational, I’m normally not a big fan of 3D because of the glasses and wearing those glasses over my own which makes my eyes hurt but here it felt so immersive I may as well have been wearing a VR headset because the depth of the image was amazing and the dimensions felt properly 3rd dimensional and very very rarely did I want to take the glasses off, this is quite simply the best use of 3D in a movie I’ve ever seen.

And so that was Avatar Fire and Ash and while it does repeat a few beats this is a cinema experience unlike any you’ll ever see, nobody does it like James Cameron and I wish we had more like him making movies, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Five Nights at Freddys 2 (2025)

Five Nights at Freddys 2 is the sequel to the 2023 movie Five Nights at Freddys and like this movie was based on the video game series, this movie sees Mike (Josh Hutcherson) try to move on with his life after the events of the first film but his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio) misses her friends at the old Freddys Pizzeria and wants them fixed so she tries to do so unaware it will only bring up ghosts from the past.

Five Nights at Freddys 2 is fine but also very very forgettable and after watching this movie I did find myself wishing these movies were better because the elements are here for a solid horror franchise: A mystery/backstory/characters and a clear villain and all of them in both movies have been wasted somewhat, the mystery and backstory feel at times overly complicated and uninteresting to watch while the cast are kinda there.

Hutcherson is good as he was in the first film but part of me did think “Peeta’s in trouble once again, can’t take some people anywhere can ya” while Elizabeth Lail is okay but shines best when she has scenes with Hutcherson as the two have good chemistry together, Piper Rubio is a good little actress but ends up becoming the standard kid that gets ignored in a Horror movie while Mackenna Grace (a newcomer to this series) has too little screen time.

What is great across both of these movies are the animatronic effects, they are superbly done here and whenever they come on screen there is a real weight and texture to them that is rarely seen with digital characters which can often look like something out of a computer game but here the practical creatures look great and if they were in better movies could’ve become very memorable horror characters like Freddy Krueger.

And so that was Five Nights at Freddys 2 and honestly if you liked the first film you’ll probably like this one otherwise I wouldn’t bother, its dull to sit through and forgettable after you leave the cinema, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Nuremberg (2025)

Nuremberg is a new historical drama that stars Rami Malek as Dr Douglas Kelley, a shrink who is brought in by the US Army to assess the mental health of Herman Goring (Russell Crowe) after he is captured trying to flee Germany after WW2, this would later lead to the famous Nuremberg trials.

Nuremberg is a movie that really affected me and is one of my absolute favourite films of the year, firstly it is a riveting drama that does run a little long at 148 minutes I didn’t really care all that much, the events on screen had me hooked as it told a great historical drama that has a lot of resonance in the times we currently live in.

Secondly there is a lot of great performances, Rami Malek is very good as Dr Kelley even if he goes a little too over the top at times, John Slattery is solid as the head of the Nuremberg prison camp while Michael Shannon and Richard E Grant are very good as the main prosecutors in the Nuremberg trails.

As for Russell Crowe as Goring he is good but at times his German accent sounds a little cartoonish which bothered me a little.

And so that was Nuremberg and this is definitely going to be in my favourite films list of the year, a great drama with a historical truth, great performances and a timely message at its core, I hope this movie finds its way into School Curriculums someday, 4 and a half out of 5.