James Cameron’s Avatar returns with an all-out visual assault on the senses

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH

(12A) 197mins

JAMES CAMERON is back on Pandora.

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying one thing — that nobody does a blockbuster spectacle like the veteran director behind Titanic, The Terminator and Aliens.

After smashing the box office once again with Avatar: The Way Of Water, the Hollywood big-hitter returns with the third chapter in this sci-fi franchise.

Larger, louder and more dramatic than ever, it is another all-out assault on the senses.

It is set about a year after the last film and the story picks up with former marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his fierce Na’vi wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) still broken by the death of their teenage son.

Full-scale war

They are living with the Metkayina clan, trying to find some peace among the heartache. But on Pandora, trouble is never far away.

This time, danger comes from the Ash People, a fiery, aggressive Na’vi tribe.

They are led by the intimidating Varang (Oona Chaplin), who quickly proves that she is one of the toughest villains the series has seen.

Even worse, she has now teamed up with old enemy Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), back again in his blue alien body and still obsessed with wiping out Jake and his entire family.

Together, they drag Pandora towards another full-scale war.

Familiar faces abound. Sigourney Weaver is back as Kiri, Kate Winslet returns to play hard-as-nails warrior Ronal, and Cliff Curtis reprises his role of Tonowari, chief of the Metkayina clan and Ronal’s husband.

David Thewlis features as Peylak, leader of the Wind Traders, while Jemaine Clement returns as marine biologist Dr Ian Garvin.

Let’s be honest, nobody goes to watch Avatar for quiet drama and deep chats.

It’s to be blown away by it — and this delivers from the off.

The visuals are stunning, the motion-capture performances precise and the action scenes huge.

And it’s wrapped up in Cameron’s unbeatable world-building.

There is a decent emotional strand too, with themes of grief, anger and revenge bubbling under the surface.

Worthington and Saldana keep things grounded, even when everything around them is falling apart.

Be warned, this is long — more than three hours — and some story arcs feel recycled. But it does exactly what it says on the tin.

LINDA MARRIC

MARTY SUPREME

(15) 150mins

★★★★★

THIS film grabs you by the collar and never lets go.

It’s a Josh Safdie film, so expect chaos – and lots of it.

Timothee Chalamet is Marty Mauser, a shoe shop clerk in 1950s New York with a big mouth and even bigger dreams.

He wants to take over the table tennis world using his own invention, the “Marty Supreme” ball.

It’s a mad idea, but he believes in it.

The film tracks Marty’s push to reach the world championships in London, while he sneaks around with his married childhood sweetheart Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and later becomes fixated on faded movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Safdie keeps all these plates spinning at once and the pace never drops.

Fran Drescher pops up as Marty’s mother, while Kevin O’Leary plays sleazy businessman Milton Rockwell, who is married to Kay.

This isn’t a feelgood sports film, just pressure, noise and bad decisions.

Chalamet is the engine of it all. He’s sharp, jumpy and impossible to ignore.

He shouts, sweats and bullies his way to the top with pure New York chutzpah.

It might even result in his first Oscar win.

Released on Boxing Day.

LINDA MARRIC

THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN

(15) 129mins

★★★☆☆

EUGENE JARECKI’S documentary takes aim at the global pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by framing it as a political manhunt with a huge price tag.

It retells the story of when Assange and his small team appeared less like enemies of the state and more like a bunch of digital idealists.

The 2010 release of the Collateral Murder footage – showing US Apache helicopters firing on Iraqi civilians and killing people, including two journalists – marks the turning point, illustrating how quickly transparency can be treated as a threat once it embarrasses the wrong people.

From there, the film charts Assange’s fall from disruptive hero to fugitive, pursued across administrations that publicly disagreed on little else.

The documentary is strongest when exposing political hypocrisy, particularly Donald Trump’s flip from praising WikiLeaks in 2016 to hunting it down once in office.

But it is also clearly picking a side.

The Swedish sex assault allegations are revisited with a defensive edge that isn’t likely to convince everyone.

On the whole, this feels one-sided, but there’s a lot here that is informative, if not always accurate.