Tag Archives: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Dec 28 2025

Top Ten Films & TV Shows of 2025

2025 delivered many exceptional genre films and television shows that surprised us with their quality and pushed boundaries. Many of them will be remembered for quite some time and others set the standards for existing franchises. Here are the ten best films and TV shows of 2025.

Films

10. Good Boy

Indy the dog stole the show in this inventive supernatural horror film told from the point of view of a good dog trying to protect his owner from a supernatural threat. What added to the suspense was the vulnerability of the dog and the fact that only he could sense the danger threatening his owner.

9. The Life of Chuck

2025 was a banner year for good to great Stephen King adaptations, and The Life of Chuck was the best of them as this heartfelt fantasy film explored themes dealing with loss, sadness, endings, and the wondrous joy of simple everyday things and relationships.

8. Jurassic World: Rebirth

Despite many criticisms made about the latest Jurassic World entry, it was unexpectedly thrilling and engaging. Sure, some of the plotlines were rethreads, but they were presented well and the film delivered some great dinosaur action.  

7. How to Train Your Dragon

This live-action remake of the classic DreamWorks animated film about a Viking teen and his pet dragon proved that it is possible to produce a topnotch live-action film based animated classics. This is something Disney sorely needs to study going forward with their endless remakes.

6. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Finally, a quality film about Marvel Comics’ first family has been done. Great performances, production and special effects are the highlights of this charming film about family and facing cosmic horror. The film gets extra points just for not depicting Galactus as a giant space cloud!

5. Sinners

Michael B. Jordan is at the top of his acting game playing dual roles in Ryan Coogler’s haunting vampire film. What could have been a simple vampire tale was instead of tour de force from Coogler that explored America’s cultural and racial divide with exceptional visual storytelling.

4. Predator: Badlands

Just like last year’s Alien: Romulus reinvigorated that franchise, so too does Predator: Badlands with its own franchise about alien hunters. This time, the eponymous alien hunter is shown in a heroic light in this imaginative sci-fi action/adventure romp that fleshes out the species of the Predator as it skillfully blends with the Alien franchise.

3. Frankenstein

Guillermo Del Toro wowed audiences once again with his vivid imaginative storytelling skills. The latest adaptation of Mary Shelly’s literary masterpiece follows the essence of the book while veering off into unique directions that explore the father and son dynamic between the title character and his monstrous yet sympathetic creation.

2. Superman

Director and head of DC Studios James Gunn successfully launched the new DC Universe (DCU) with a fresh and interpretation of the Man of Steel. Superman and his colorful superhero world is rightfully depicted in a bright, hopeful light that cleverly raises questions about our current events and society. Superman is a very promising start to the DCU and we can’t wait for the latest entry.

1. TIE: Avatar: Fire and Ash/Thunderbolts*

This is a first for this blog, the two best films of 2025 were that great but so close in quality for different reasons that it was too hard to choose one above the other. So the two best films of 2025 are a tie.

Once again James Cameron proves why he is one of our greatest filmmakers with Avatar: Fire and Ash. The visuals and worldbuilding in this sci-fi epic are jaw dropping and must be seen in large screens. Some of the set pieces are too familiar but Avatar: Fire and Ash does develop many characters and kept us engaged with the plight of the moon Pandora as it faced evil human colonists.

Thunderbolts* aka The New Avengers was unexpectedly the best superhero film of 2025 thanks to heartfelt performances and chemistry among its cast and an emotional story of misfit mercenaries who become unlikely superheroes. Unlike the typical superhero romp, Thunderbolts* focused on characters and explored adult themes of mental and emotional health, loneliness, addiction and depression. We’ll be rooting for these underdogs when they return in Avengers: Doomsday.

Honorable Mentions:

28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, Bugonia, Captain America: Brave New World, Companion, The Electric State, The Gorge, The Great Flood, It Ends, The Long Walk, Predator: Killer of Killers, Primitive War, Weapons, Zootopia 2

Television

10. Paradise

This murder mystery that took place in a post-apocalyptic underground town shelter was elevated by great performances by Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden and an engrossing storyline that kept viewers guessing about what happened to the world and who murdered the U.S. president.

9. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The third season of the only remaining Star Trek show (for now) had its problems such as its uneven tone and showcasing too much of James T. Kirk (the show is supposed to be about Captain Pike). Still, some of the episodes were true standouts that proved there were still great Star Trek episodes to be presented.

8. Marvel Zombies

Put together classic characters from the MCU and zombie horror and what do you get? A terrifically gory and fast-moving series with some outrageous zombie action that demands a second season! Hopefully there will be more than four episodes.

7. Peacemaker

While the season finale dropped the ball as it turned out to be a drawn-out coda with concert footage, the second season of Peacemaker was for the most part a captivating look exploration of the title character’s wounded psyche as he second guessed his place in the DCU.

6. Stranger Things 5

The final season of Netflix’s breakout sci-fi/horror show was a bit all over the place with multiple characters and such, but it was still a solid sendoff to our favorite young residents of Hawkins as they had their final confrontations with the extra-dimensional horrors of the Upside Down realm.

5. Daredevil: Born Again

Marvel’s premier superhero TV show had a solid comeback in this sequel to the original Netflix show. Even though Daredevil and his crime-ridden world are now firmly part of the MCU, the TV show was just as gritty and grounded as the original. Stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio turn in some of the best performances of their careers as they reprised their roles as Daredevil and Wilson Fisk, respectively.

4. Severance

The sophomore season of this dark psychological workplace thriller threw audiences for a loop with many unexpected plot twists and character developments. It was very easy to relate to the plight of the office worker drones forced to have their out-of-work identities and memories erased and their efforts to fight the cold company they work for.

3. Pluribus

Vince Gilligan (famous for his TV shows Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) returned to his sci-fi roots with this quietly disturbing slow-burn TV show about a disgruntled novelist (Rhea Seehorn in one of the year’s best performances) forced to fight isolation, her inner demons, and to save humanity after an extra-terrestrial signal transforms nearly everyone into a global hive mind.

2. It: Welcome to Derry

Part sequel, part prequel to the It films from a few years ago, It: Welcome to Derry was one of the best surprises when it came to TV shows. Each episode was horrifying with macabre set pieces and featured rich character development that fleshed out Stephen King’s fictional town. In addition to the characters, the TV show also had many unexpected twists and fleshed out the expansive King multiverse in an organic manner that made us want to further explore it, no pun intended.

1. Andor

No other TV show came close to matching the artistry of Andor, which is easily the best Star Wars television show of all time and one of the best TV shows of any genre. The second and final season was a tense spy thriller set in the Star Wars universe with many brutal and heart wrenching political storylines that echoed our own civil strife as it chronicled the death of democracy and the bitter origins of the resistance to stand against tyranny. Andor also engaged audiences with thought-out character development which showcased their ambivalent nature in their fight for and against the Galactic Empire.

Honorable Mentions:

Alien: Earth, Black Mirror, Doctor Who, The Eternaut, Eyes of Wakanda, Fallout, Foundation, Gen V, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Institute, Invincible, Ironheart, The Last of Us, Murderbot, Wednesday, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

  

Dec 21 2025

The World Of Avatar Continues To Astound With Avatar: Fire And Ash

The latest entry in filmmaker James Cameron’s sci-fi saga, Avatar, is out now in theaters and the question is does Avatar: Fire and Ash deliver the astounding cinematic thrills? Yes, it does, though some may want something different at this point.

Avatar: Fire and Ash takes place right after the  previous film, Avatar: The Way of Water, and deals with the aftermath of that film’s events.  For anyone who hasn’t seen these films, they take place on the moon Pandora which is inhabited by tribes of tall, blue-skinned beings called the Na’vi who are deeply in tuned with nature because of their ability to use appendages to form neural links with Pandoran lifeforms. They worship an entity called Eywa who makes up the collective consciousness of Pandora and interconnects with nature. Their existence is threatened by human colonists from a dying Earth who do not hesitated to exploit the moon’s natural resources and treat the Na’vi as inferior creatures. The films focus on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a human paraplegic former soldier whose consciousness inhabits the body of an artificially grown Na’vi known as an avatar. Sully rebelled against his fellow humans and eventually starts a family with his partner Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), but they have to stay on guard from vengeful humans who want to bring Sully to justice. Sully is being hunted by another avatar, Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), his former commander who is obsessed with capturing Sully. What is unusual here is that the actual Quaritch was killed in the first film and the Quaritch avatar is inhabited by implanted memories from Quaritch.

At the start of Avatar: Fire and Ash, the Sully Family is deep in mourning over the death of the eldest son (Jamie Flatters) who was killed by human forces in the previous film. One of the members of the family is Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion), a human teenager who embraces the Na’vi way of life and rejects his father who happens to be Quaritch. Sully fears that Spider cannot remain with the family in their sanctuary and transports Spider to a human colony made up of human scientists who also rebelled against their fellow colonists. As the Sullys are transported by a tribe of Na’vi called Windtraders who use giant aerial jellyfish-like creatures for transportation, the tribe is attacked by a rogue Na’vi tribe called the Mangkwan. This particular tribe has rejected Eywa, embraces violence, and are very hostile to the other Na’vi. Their leader is Varang (Oona Chaplin), who is nihilistically vicious and forms an alliance with Qauritch and the human colonists to hunt Sully in exchange for human weapons.

What complicates matters for the characters is that Quaritch is also obsessed with finding his son and repairing his relationship with him, which is odd since the actual Quaritch died in the first Avatar film. Meanwhile, the Sullys have another adopted child called Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) who is the child of yet another avatar, Grace Augustine.  The identity of Kiri’s father is unknown and Grace cannot answer this because she died in the first film. Kiri has an uncanny ability to connect with Pandora’s life forces and her actions in saving Spider drive the film’s narrative. In Pandora, humans cannot breathe the air and at one point in the film, Spider’s breathing unit breaks down and he starts to suffocate. Kiri is able to save him by implanting a mycelium symbiote into Spider that lets him breathe Pandora’s air.

After the humans learn about this they task Quaritch to hunt down Spider so he could be studied to see how this ability to breath Pandora’s air could be replicated for the rest of humanity. Sully fears this because he knows this event would be disastrous for the Na’vi. Adding to his woes are dealing with the bitter hatred and bigotry Neytiri has towards humans even Spider himself, and with the plight of his remaining son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), who is wracked with guilt over his brother’s death and tries to measure up to Sully, while forging his own destiny.

As anyone can tell, unlike the earlier films, the plot for Avatar: Fire and Ash is more complex and filled with developed character nuances. A common complaint about the films is that they are essentially simplistic sci-fi versions of Dances With Wolves or Ferngully. Most people did not care, as seen by the huge box office numbers of the films. They came to theaters for the sheer spectacle of the immense and intricate details that James Cameron infused into the films. One of the main reasons that the films tend to take so long to produce is because of the revolutionary special effects, 3D technology and dense worldbuilding that are the Avatar films’ best assets. Just like the other films, Avatar: Fire and Ash has to be seen on large screens not on phones and other digital devices.

With that said as spectacular and jaw dropping the third Avatar film is, one can’t help wish that Cameron did not play it so safe with familiar beats. Sure, the action and the visuals are incomparable and the film gets a lot of credit for developing the characters especially Quaritch who once was a one-note military villain but is now slowly becoming an anti-hero and adopting the Na’vi way. But many of the story beats in the other films are repeated in Avatar: Fire and Ash, just done on a larger scale, such as bondings with the whale-like tulkuns and flying banshees, the final confrontation between the Na’vi, Pandora’s fauna and the human soldiers and whalers or having Sully’s children continually captured and rescued. However, these plot elements were well done, and there are intriguing new developments like the introduction of the villainous Na’vi and Kiri’s connection to Eywa, it’s just that with a runtime of over three hours, more should have been done to develop the overall story. It’s regrettable that with such a rich world to explore, Cameron did not introduce new biomes such as deserts or polar regions. Also, with all the talk about Earth dying, this begs a visit or a look at the planet. The closest we’ve seen of Earth was a deleted scene that originally opened the first Avatar. At least he did introduce antagonistic Na’vi with their own separate worldviews and by the way, Varang is one great villain and her obsession with human weapons added a new angle for the Na’vi. Hopefully, she’ll return in the sequels and that the other lingering storylines get resolved. These include the emotional journeys of Jake, Neytiri (who gets a lot of great material in this film), Kiri, Lo’ak, Spider, and Quaritch.

James Cameron has been coy lately over whether or not there will be more films in the Avatar franchise. About a quarter of the fourth film has already been shot, but he and Disney are waiting for the box office results to determine if Jake Sully and the Na’vis’ story should continue. This story must be allowed to come to its natural conclusion as Avatar: Fire and Ash left many questions and threads unresolved.

Putting aside the nitpicks about Avatar: Fire and Ash it has to be stressed that this is a great film and better than most of what is being released. The film is very engaging and well executed. It is so easy to get involved with the characters’ stories to the point that we care about what happens to them and get uneasy wondering if they will actually die.  As mentioned before, the film has to be seen on large screens in 3D and the story is done well enough to merit going out of one’s way to see this in theaters and marvel at Cameron’s rich vision.

José Soto

Jan 5 2025

Top Ten Most Anticipated Films & TV Shows

Aside from the fact that the year 2025 means that this century is now 25 percent complete, this year promises many great genre films and TV shows for our enjoyment. Here is the list of the most anticipated films and TV shows for 2025. But note that as always, some of the projects listed will either be delayed to another year or turn out to be hot garbage and/or won’t necessarily be among the best films or TV shows when the year is complete. With that, let’s check out what 2025 has in store for us.

Films

10. Predator: Badlands

The film Prey turned out to be a great surprise as it jumpstarted the Predator franchise. The director of Prey, Daniel Tracthenberg, returns with a fresh new premise as the new film is told from the point of view of the Predator.

9. Jurassic World: Rebirth

The Jurassic Park/World franchise starts off with a new premise and cast as dinosaurs have become an endangered species. Calamity ensues (as always) when humans try to gather genetic material from the last remaining dinosaurs on an island.

8. Sinners

Black Panther Director Ryan Coogler teams up again with actor Michael B. Jordan in a horror yarn featuring vampires. Jordan plays a dual role as troubled twin brothers who return to their hometown only to discover a deadly evil waiting for them.

7. How to Train Your Dragon

While the idea of adapting beloved animated classics into live-action films has run its course, looking at you Disney, the trailer for this film looks great. It captured the look and tone of the original film from DreamWorks Animation, so let’s hope the film will turn out to be as great as the animated classic.

6. Captain America: Brave New World

The first film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for 2025 would have been more anticipated if not for the unsettling and continuous reports about constant reshoots and poor reactions from screenings. The trailers look great, especially with Harrison Ford playing the Red Hulk and Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson fully embracing the legacy role of Captain America. In any event, we’ll see in a few weeks.

5. Thunderbolts*

At first, this loose adaptation of the Marvel Comics anti-superhero team seemed like a poor MCU knockoff of the Suicide Squad. What gave this impression was the lineup of the team of supervillains forced into servitude by the U.S. government. Unlike the comic books, the team is made up of the MCU’s lesser-powered characters. But the interplay among them as seen in the trailers was amusing and could be the highlight of the film.

4. 28 Years Later

The creative people behind the first film, 28 Days Later, return for the third film in the British “zombie” apocalypse film franchise which is set…28 years after the first film. Being that the original director, Danny Boyle, is back, this film should be as tense and horrifying as the original classic. There are many questions about what has happened to the world after the Rage Virus has decimated it or what happened to the main protagonist from the first film since Cillian Murphy will return, but it’s not clear in what capacity.

3. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

After so many flawed live-action versions of Marvel Comics’ First Family, Marvel Studios finally has creative control over the property. The new version of the famed superhero team/dysfunctional family promises to be more faithful to the spirit of the comic books that launched Marvel Comics. A lot is riding on the success of this new Fantastic Four film for the MCU and Marvel Studios because the team will be pivotal players in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga and due to the involvement of the studio’s president, Kevin Feige, to ensure the film’s success.

2. Superman

Filmmaker James Gunn formally launches the rebooted DC cinematic universe with his version of the Man of Steel. Superman promises to veer away from the dark and maligned version of Superman seen in the failed DC Extended Universe. This version of Superman will go back to its optimistic comic book roots and once again serve as a beacon of hope and justice in our world, and lord knows we need someone like Superman now. Superman must be well received, and its chances are high thanks to the talented Gunn fresh from the success of his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash

Never underestimate filmmaker James Cameron. He is a truly gifted and imaginary film auteur who has immersed audiences with his past films, including the first two Avatar films. Despite the complaints about the simplistic nature of the Avatar films, they are very immersive thanks to groundbreaking special effects and 3D technology. These aspects helped elevated Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water into event films that were very popular. Cameron will continue this immersion into an alien world with the third film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, as it further explores the verdant moon of Pandora, the continuing fight against human invaders and has the main characters encountering an evil tribe of Na’vi.

Notable Mentions:

Ash; The Black Phone 2; Companion; Elio; The Electric State; Five Nights at Freddy’s 2; Frankenstein; The Gorge; The Last Battleship; The Legend of Ochi; Lilo & Stitch; Love Me; M3GAN 2.0; Mickey 17; The Monkey; Planet Gliese; Presence; The Running Man; Star Trek: Section 31; Tron: Ares; Wolf Man; Zootopia 2

TV Shows

10. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

This third series set in the world of A Game of Thrones looks very engaging with its rich production as seen in clips and its premise about a wandering knight and his squire in the land of Westeros.

9. Peacemaker

The super violent super soldier from DC Comics was portrayed to great comic effect by John Cena, He will reprise his role for the second season with episodes written by James Gunn, who will also direct at least one episode.

8. It: Welcome to Derry

The infamous fictional Maine town of Derry featured in many of Stephen King’s literary works is the setting of this Max series that zeroes in on the evil influence of the malicious entity Pennywise.

7. The Last of Us

The second season of the acclaimed adaptation of the video game continues its story of Joel and young Ellie, survivors of the apocalyptic fungal pandemic that devastated the world. What is not known is if the series will continue to be as faithful to the game as it progresses.

6. Alien: Earth

Noah Haley writes and directs the first TV series based on the Alien franchise. Little is known about this prequel to the original film, other than it involves a ragtag group of soldiers dealing with a deadly threat to our planet after the alien xenomorphs arrive on our planet.

5. Severance

The horrors of the modern office workplace take an even more macabre turn in the second season of Severance. Adam Scott returns as Mark the employee of the mysterious Lumon corporation that erases the memories of its employees each time they go to and from work. The second season should answer many burning questions about Lumon and deepen its mystery.

4. Stranger Things 5

The Stranger Things saga comes to an epic conclusion with its fifth and final season. It has been a couple of years since the last season of Stranger Things, but the talented cast and crew of the popular ode to ‘80s sci-fi/teenage films will be able to pick up where they left off and conclude the show’s storylines. Fingers crossed that it can defy trends and be able to stick the landing with its final episodes.

3. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Captain Pike, Spock and the rest of the first crew of the starship Enterprise return in the third season. Thankfully the first episode of the season will conclude the cliffhanger thread that left us screaming at our TV screens when the second season concluded. The rest of the episodes should be able to continue to evoke the adventurous spirit of the original Star Trek with fresh, modern stories as the characters explore strange new worlds.

2. Andor

What set Andor apart from the typical Star Wars fare was its more mature and grounded tone with ambiguous characters and complex situations that fully fleshed out the Star Wars universe. The second and final season of the acclaimed Star Wars TV show about the conflicted Rebel spy Andor (Diego Luna) will lead directly to the classic film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Andor’s second season should be just as complex and mature as the first and continue to set the bar not just for Star Wars but sci-fi TV shows in general.

1. Daredevil: Born Again

The best Netflix Marvel TV series is revived for Disney + and returns many of the beloved actors from the original series starting with Charlie Cox as the blind lawyer/superhero, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and Vincent D’Onofrio as the evil crimelord Wilson Fisk, who is now the Mayor of New York City. Initially there was some trepidation about the direction of the series as it supposedly strayed from the gritty tone of the Netflix TV show, but Kevin Feige corrected course and had the series reshot nearly from scratch. The result should be a superhero TV show that matches or exceeds the standards of the original Daredevil, which is still considered one of the best superhero TV shows.  

Notable Mentions:

Batman: Caped Crusader; Black Mirror; Doctor Who; Eyes of Wakanda; For All Mankind; Gen V; The Handmaid’s Tale; Invincible; Ironheart; Marvel Zombies; The Sandman; Wednesday; Win or Lose; Wonder Man; Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man; Zero Day