The third Avatar chapter erupts with volcanic world-building and thunderous action yet remains a vast, dazzling spectacle in search of an emotional arc

On and on and on it goes. The planet-sized movie franchise of Avatar continues to spin massively in the cosmos – yet without affecting the tides in any other world. Maybe Avatar is the cosmos and its originator James Cameron is the new L Ron Hubbard; the creator, or rather prophet, of a new belief system involving big blue creatures with pointy ears that flap and twitch when they talk, to whom we will all one day be required to bow down when they float past. And while the rest of the cinema industry has quietly abandoned 3D without ever quite admitting it, theatres showing James Cameron’s giant new three-hour hunk of nonsense are still handing out the 3D specs to the customers.

The first film was about human invaders seeking to exploit and colonise the weird tall blue Na’vi people in another galaxy for their mineral resources by piloting “avatar” replicants into their midst. One of these pilots was Cpl Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, who fell in love with Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldaña, and stayed behind as a Na’vi – thus infuriating his commanding officer, Col Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang, who since then has died in battle but is now resurrected as a Na’vi avatar, looking scarily as if Vinnie Jones had joined the Blue Man Group. Quaritch’s teen son Spider (Jack Champion) has turned against him and lives with Jake and Neytiri as their adoptive child. In the second film, the Na’vi people found a new world of water. Now in this third film they face the new element of … fire. For the proposed fourth and fifth films, they will presumably tackle earth and wind.

The latest in our series of writers explaining their comfort watches is a celebration of 2021’s acclaimed animated adventure

Animation is a great way of allowing you to experience the world through the eyes of another, complete with the colour, energy, imagination and chaos that this can bring. It’s true whether you’re looking at the world from the perspective of a frustrated and talented teenage girl, or from that of a megalomaniacal rogue AI who dreams of blasting every human on Earth into space in tiny hexagonal pods (with free wifi!). Such is the chaotic and sensational combination of styles that fuels animated road-trip riot The Mitchells vs the Machines, a film that crams a father-daughter conflict, a techno-apocalypse, Olivia Colman, and every colour of the rainbow into a burnt-orange 1993 station wagon.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller produce with the same kind of free-spirited approach that characterised the likes of The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s then balanced out by Gravity Falls’ Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe, who complement the zaniness with a nuanced, gentle and heartfelt story, making it more than just a superficial display of artistry. The Mitchells vs the Machines is not just a story of the relationships people have with one another, but those we have with technology and our past selves.