Movie Reviews

Rob’s Car Movie Review: Duel (1971) – Street Muscle

Published

12 months ago

December 31, 2024

Rob’s Car Movie Review: Duel (1971) – Street Muscle

Duel began life as a short story written by Richard Matheson, one of Hollywood’s most seasoned writers. Previous work of Matheson’s included episodic writing for such TV series as Have Gun – Will Travel, Combat!, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Star Trek, and movies like The Omega Man, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Raven. He was perhaps best known though for having written 16 episodes of Rod Serling’s classic show, The Twilight Zone.

Matheson penned the story of Duel after being dangerously tailgated by a trucker while driving on a California highway on November 22, 1963, the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Duel was ultimately published in the March, 1971 issue of Playboy magazine.

Duel author and teleplay writer, Richard Matheson. (Photo courtesy of Manor Vellum.)

The story was brought to the attention of fledgling director Spielberg by his secretary, who told him that she was aware Universal and ABC had optioned the property for a Movie of the Week and were looking for a director.

Spielberg read the short and was compelled enough by the strength of it to apply for the job. He met with producer George Ekstein and beat out a host of other directors based on an episode of Colombo Spielberg had directed and showed the producer. Matheson was meanwhile hired to adapt his story into a teleplay.

Director Steven Spielberg on the set of Duel. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

During the casting process, Spielberg fought hard to have Dennis Weaver star in the project based on the director’s admiration for the actor’s performance as the hotel manager in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, opposite Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and Welles himself.

Spielberg, and Weaver, eventually won out. Additional cast members included Jacqueline Scott, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizzell, and Lucille Benson, all in minor roles.

Dennis Weaver as the main protagonist, motorist David Mann. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Principal photography was completed in just 13 days, mostly on rural California stretches such as the Agua Dulce Canyon Road, Soledad Canyon Road, Angeles Forest Road, and the Sierra Highway. Equally astonishing is the fact that the film was edited in a mere 10 days by Frank Morriss.

Duel originally aired as the ABC Movie of the Week on November 13, 1971, and received rave reviews by critics and viewers alike. Spielberg, in particular, was lauded by film critics from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter for his directorial flourishes on the movie.

The movie opens with a montage of shots taken from the bumper of Mann’s car as it travels from Los Angeles to the high desert. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

So universally positive were the reactions to Duel that it was theatrically released in 1972-’73 in an extended 90 minute version (14 minutes longer than the television cut) with additional scenes shot by Spielberg.

Duel’s plot is simple. David Mann (Weaver) is a Los Angeles salesman who has an appointment with a client upstate. During the course of his drive he encounters a worse-for-wear big rig truck emblazoned with “Flammable” warnings all over its exterior.

Mann’s original sin: passing the big rig. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

The truck is going slowly up a grade, so Mann passes it in a responsible fashion using his turn signals, and is soon underway at a speed he figures will get him to his appointment on time.

Just a few moments later, the truck abruptly roars past him, cuts him off, and then slows down to its original speed in front of Mann. Perturbed, and now breathing the truck’s diesel exhaust, Mann passes the tanker again and is treated to a blast from its air horns.

Mann and his tormentor at the gas station. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Later in the day, Mann pulls into a gas station, and a few minutes later the tanker parks next to him at an adjacent pump. The truck’s driver gets out of the beast on the side opposite Mann’s field of view, but the salesman is able to see the man’s cowboy boots.

After a phone call to his quarrelsome wife in which she quips about his lack of manhood the night before when his co-worker was making advances towards her, Mann is told by the gas station attendant that he needs a new radiator hose. He declines the repair and is on his way.

Back on the road, Mann is once again menaced by the tanker truck, which rudely passes him and then swerves all over the road to prevent Mann from repassing. Mann finally gets past the truck, whereupon the big rig tailgates him, forcing Mann to go faster and faster. Doing in excess of 100 mph, Mann loses control of his vehicle and spins out across from a diner.

Mann spies his adversary outside the diner. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Shaken, he goes into the diner’s lavatory. When he comes out, he sees the offending truck parked outside, and assumes the driver is in the diner with him. He studies the diner’s patrons, and confronts one wearing similar cowboy boots to the truck’s driver.

The patron does not take well to Mann’s accusations and punches him several times. The man then leaves, gets into a pickup truck, and drives away, indicating to Mann that he had picked out the wrong man.

Out on the highway, the dangerous game of cat and mouse continues, with the tanker truck’s attacks becoming more potentially lethal.

The big rig tries to kill Mann by pushing his car into a freight train. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

As the two vehicles begin to ascend a mountain road, Mann is able to put space between himself and the much slower truck. Mann starts to relax, but just as he does, his radiator hose bursts, causing his car to overheat thus making the ascent to the top of the mountain unlikely.

With the big rig now hot on his tail, Mann must take matters into his own hands to ensure his very survival.

A blown radiator hose derails Mann’s getaway. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

In spite of Duel’s unsophisticated plot, the movie actually makes quite a few thematic comments on life-and-death, contemporary society, and masculinity. The fact that we never see the driver of the big-rig also imparts a supernatural feel to the proceedings, as if this is perhaps a fever dream in Mann’s head, or, if real, that the driver of the truck is in fact a demon or the devil himself.

This quasi-satanic angle is so well conceived in the movie that it was directly lifted for the less well-crafted but nonetheless entertaining 1977 film, The Car, starring James Brolin.

Glimpses of Spielberg’s future cinematic aesthetic are visible throughout the film. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Quick glimpses of Spielberg filmmaking hallmarks are littered throughout Duel. His use of wide angle lenses on close-up subjects to infuse a sense of shock or panic are present, as is his exceptional framing and use of the camera to convey information.

For a 25 year-old, Spielberg’s mastery of the mise-en-scene is absolutely extraordinary here, and it makes for an exciting romp despite the straightforward plot. It stands to reason that in the hands of a lesser director, Duel could have easily been a bore and a misfire.

Spielberg’s use of framing, lens choice, and depth make even mundane sequences feel artistic. Examples include this shot of Mann’s car driving through the desert, and Mann’s phone call to his wife, framed inside the door of a washing machine. (Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

The use of sound and the lack thereof at times is also beautifully handled in the film, often injecting a menacing tone of impending doom. Relatively little dialogue is spoken in the movie, as per Spielberg’s desire to let the terror of the situation and the vehicles do the talking. The majority of dialogue in the film is heard as a narration of Mann’s inner thoughts.

The cinematography by Jack A. Marta, the aforementioned editing by Frank Morriss, and Billy Goldenberg’s exciting score should also be given a nod for their peerless efficacy.

Mann’s ride: a 1970 Plymouth Valiant. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Even Spielberg’s selection of vehicles is well thought through. Mann’s car, a 1970 Plymouth Valiant, is a compact with a limited powertrain. It was chosen to echo Mann’s meek personality and his wife’s suggestion to the effect that he was no Prince Valliant the night before. The car’s blinding Tor-Red exterior paint, on the other hand, was chosen by the director solely because it would stand out against the desert locales that they filmed in.

As an aside for those concerned with production minutiae, four Valiants were used during production. A 1970 and ’71 model equipped with Chrysler’s 225 cubic-inch slant six were used for beauty shots, while an older 1969 model with the manufacturer’s 318 cubic-inch V8, was dressed up to look like the 1970 model and used primarily as the stunt car.

For the extra scenes shot for the theatrical release of the movie, a 1972 Valiant with the 225 cubic-inch six was used. To Spielberg’s dismay, this car would later be used in an episode of the Universal television series, The Incredible Hulk.

Spielberg settled on a 1957 Peterbuilt 281 for the truck as he felt it had a menacing “face.” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

Spielberg looked at a number of big rigs before deciding on the 1957 Peterbuilt 281 used in the film. Its older cab styling, consisting of a long hood, round headlights, and split windshield, looked like a menacing face to the director, and its decrepit condition helped to convey the dark specter motif that he was after. The addition of multiple license plates on the truck’s bumper was Spielberg’s idea, to suggest that the driver is a serial killer who has done this before to other drivers across the southwest.

The truck was powered by a 280 horsepower CAT 1673 turbocharged diesel engine with a 13-speed transmission and had a Rockwell TK-570 axle behind it. The top speed of such a setup was roughly 65 mph, so the impression of greater speed was accomplished by wise selections of camera lenses and low angles.

Spielberg’s chose of lenses and angles were able to make the tanker look like it was going faster than it was. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

For the additional scenes filmed for the 1972-’73 theatrical release, a 1962 Peterbuilt 351 with a CAT 1673B engine was used.

The vehicular action in Duel is truly top-notch, as one would expect since legendary Hollywood stuntman Carey Loftin was the stunt coordinator and driver of the big rig. Loftin’s previous credits included standouts like Viva Las Vegas, Bullitt (he was the on-screen driver of the bad guys’ Dodge Charger in that film), Grand Prix, Bonnie and Clyde, Vanishing Point, and The French Connection, amongst countless others.

His vehicle control behind the wheel of that big, ungainly Peterbuilt is remarkable and must be seen to be appreciated.

Maybe Mr. Mann should have walked instead of driven. (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.)

In all, Duel is a very finely crafted, and thoroughly enjoyable movie. Had I been a film critic at the time of the movie’s release, I would have had no trouble singling out Steven Spielberg as a future grand auteur of the medium. His directorial stamp can be felt over every frame of the film, and his choices here are always dead on.

Spielberg turned a potentially run-of-the-mill Movie of the Week into a project worthy of theatrical distribution at a time when I believe only a handful of other directors could have done so. I highly recommend that you see Duel if you never have, and I give it 8 out of 10 pistons.

Movie Reviews

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is the Best Avatar (Movie Review)

Published

11 hours ago

December 21, 2025

Press Room

For the first time in over thirty years, the release of a new James Cameron film has been met with a decidedly mixed reception. While his three prior films—1997’s Titanic, 2009’s Avatar, and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water—each experienced their own respective backlashes and pushback in the years that followed, they were all greeted with overwhelmingly positive reviews upon release and were each nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In stark contrast, Cameron’s new film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, has been met with far less praise, with many prognosticators even predicting it will be Cameron’s first film since True Lies in 1994 to not receive a Best Picture nomination.

I tried to ignore all of this ahead of my screening last week, but it proved nearly impossible and raised a fascinating question in my mind: had I ever even considered the possibility that Avatar: Fire and Ash might be a disappointment before this moment? The answer was a definitive no. As someone who saw Avatar in a preview screening back in 2009 and genuinely enjoyed it, then flat-out loved The Way of Water in 2022, the idea that this third installment could be a letdown felt unfathomable. And yet, as I walked into the IMAX 3D theater the other night, it was a thought I couldn’t completely shake.

To my absurd delight, all of that concern turned out to be for nothing. It is genuinely beyond my comprehension what the mixed early reception was about, because Avatar: Fire and Ash is not only my favorite Avatar film to date, but also one of the most distinct, idiosyncratic, and absolutely batshit gonzo blockbusters of the past decade.

TOP 5 THINGS ABOUT “AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH”

5. Training Wheels Off

One of the biggest hurdles any new high-concept original film faces is getting audiences fully onboard with its story, world, and characters. That hurdle was especially daunting for the first Avatar, which had the unenviable task of convincing audiences whose last experience with James Cameron was Titanic to show up and care about giant blue, cat-eared aliens known as the Na’vi. Cameron handled this challenge with remarkable grace, grounding viewers through a surrogate protagonist in Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) and allowing audiences to experience this bold new world alongside him for the very first time.

For the second film, arriving more than a decade later, Cameron and company made the smart decision to take their time reintroducing viewers to Pandora. The Way of Water eases audiences back in, patiently rebuilding familiarity with the world and characters before fully ramping things up again.

With Avatar: Fire and Ash, however, Cameron rips the training wheels clean off the metaphorical bike, throwing audiences directly into the thick of the action from the opening moments. This third installment is, by far, the most inside-baseball the franchise has ever been, but crucially, it’s all in service of the story. The first film established the world, the second deepened the characters—Jake, Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldaña), and the entire Sully family—and Fire and Ash uses that foundation as a launching pad. The result is a film that confidently builds on what came before and rises to remarkable new heights.

4. The Existential Themes

For many filmmakers, aging brings with it a shift toward more reflective themes, with existentialism often moving to the center of their work. You can see clear modern examples of this in filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Ridley Scott, all of whom have delivered phenomenal late-career films that foreground ideas of time, humanity, and the finite nature of both. Interestingly, though, James Cameron had never truly seemed to engage with these ideas in his work. For so long, he was singularly focused on getting the Avatar saga off the ground, relentlessly pushing forward, that it felt as though there was little room for introspection or reflection.

Amazingly and unexpectedly, Avatar: Fire and Ash completely upends that assumption. Cameron essentially delivers a Disney-produced, multi-billion-dollar blockbuster centered on a family grappling with faith, loss, and the question of God in the aftermath of tragedy. Narratively, one of the film’s driving questions is whether Eywa still exists and, if so, why she allows terrible things to happen.

On a metatextual level, Cameron pushes this even further, using the sheer scale of the film to wrestle with enormous philosophical and thematic questions. Despite years of criticism aimed at the franchise’s sometimes on-the-nose messaging around conservation, Fire and Ash reframes those ideas into something far more nuanced. The result is a beautiful, poignant meditation on faith, humanity, and responsibility that feels remarkably prescient in today’s world.

3. Obscenely Human Performances

Inevitably, when people talk about the Avatar films, the conversation turns to visual effects. Cameron and his collaborators have spent literal decades reinventing the wheel in this area, resulting in gobsmackingly tactile digital creations and groundbreaking performance-capture techniques. But what risks getting lost in that discussion, despite Cameron’s best efforts to prevent it, is the genuine humanity at the core of the franchise. The performances in Avatar: Fire and Ash are nothing short of spectacular, with each of the series’ mainstays rising to new heights and delivering their best work to date.

Stephen Lang has never been better as the conflicted antagonist Quaritch, while newcomer Oona Chaplin’s manic charisma practically leaps off the screen as Varang. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña, meanwhile, somehow continue to refine and deepen the volatile, palpable passion that defines the Sully family dynamic. Their chemistry feels more lived-in and emotionally charged than ever.

Throughout the film, there are numerous tightly focused, interpersonal scenes where the actors are given room to engage with genuinely meaty material, and they seize the opportunity every time. One standout moment centers on Jake and Neytiri feeling cornered and forced to make an excruciating decision involving a member of their extended family. The authenticity and emotional weight they bring to the scene cuts straight through the layers of technology, transforming it into something purely human and eliciting a deeply human response in return.

2. Jaw-Dropping Spectacle

James Cameron is a legend of action cinema. This is the filmmaker behind Aliens, Terminator 2, True Lies, and so much more; he understands action set pieces on a level few can match. One of the great pleasures of the Avatar films thus far has been watching Cameron operate within such a vast creative sandbox, where cutting-edge technology allows him to bring virtually anything he can imagine to life. That freedom has already produced several standout sequences across the first two films, but Avatar: Fire and Ash finds Cameron pushing himself even further, delivering some of the most astounding, gripping, and white-knuckle action of his entire career.

These sequences are so imaginative, multi-layered, and meticulously constructed that entire masterclasses could be built around them individually. The film is packed with moments like this, each one executed with remarkable clarity and precision. Cameron structures the action so it remains endlessly legible and fluid, while still hitting with overwhelming visceral impact.

Watching Fire and Ash feels like seeing a filmmaker repeatedly go all in, bet everything on black, win, and then immediately double down again. He sustains this audacious momentum across the film’s three-hour-plus runtime, creating a delirious, adrenaline-fueled high that’s genuinely staggering to experience in real time.

1. James Cameron’s Insane Vision

There are a million other things to say about this film, but I’ll leave you with this: for decades, James Cameron has been rightfully celebrated as the architect behind some of the greatest sequels in blockbuster history. With Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Avatar: The Way of Water, he proved himself remarkably adept at expanding the scope of a story while simultaneously digging deeper into the emotional and psychological roots of its characters. Think of Ellen Ripley in Aliens, Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, or the Sully family in The Way of Water. Each of these films challenges its characters in unprecedented ways and, in doing so, uncovers greater truths about who they are.

Avatar: Fire and Ash sees Cameron and his collaborators taking this philosophy and pushing it even further, to almost staggering effect. This third installment is monumental by every metric: a larger ensemble, more locations, a denser narrative, and more ambitious large-scale action sequences than ever before.

And yet, despite all of that scale, the film is also the most intimately and emotionally grounded entry in the franchise. It is deeply rooted in the interpersonal lives, struggles, and inner conflicts of its characters. The relatively simple archetypes of the first film have given way to richly nuanced, complex, and fully realized individuals. What’s truly astonishing is how organic Cameron makes that evolution feel, as if this depth was always embedded in the story, simply waiting to be unlocked.

RGM GRADE

(A)

I suppose I can understand why some critics and audiences aren’t embracing Avatar: Fire and Ash as readily as its predecessors. It’s a stranger, funnier, bigger, more emotional, hornier, and altogether more bombastic film. If you’re not on board for the full spectrum of eccentricities and idiosyncrasies that come with that, Fire and Ash simply might not be for you.

But for the freaks like me who’ve spent 2025 celebrating the wins of big, ambitious, auteur-driven cinematic swings—films like Sinners, 28 Years Later, or One Battle After Another—Avatar: Fire and Ash feels like the ultimate victory in a year full of them. It’s the batshit-insane, deeply personal, and unmistakably singular vision of James Cameron unleashed in the most glorious and uninhibited way possible.

New Avatar is the best Avatar.

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Movie Reviews

1985 Movie Reviews – A Chorus Line, The Color Purple, Enemy Mine, and Out of Africa | The Nerdy

Published

23 hours ago

December 20, 2025

Press Room

1985 Movie Reviews – A Chorus Line, The Color Purple, Enemy Mine, and Out of Africa | The Nerdy

by Sean P. Aune | December 20, 2025

Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1985 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1985 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around, it’s Dec. 20, 1985, and we’re off to see A Chorus Line, The Color Purple, Enemy Mine, and Out of Africa.

A Chrous Line

For a film about dancers, it’s amazing how lifeless it feels.

Set during the auditions for the chorus line of a new musical, the story follows the lives and dreams of the assembled men and women that cover multiple age brackets and backgrounds.

At the time, A Chorus Line was the most successful Broadway show ever. The film was meant to do for movie musicals what it had done for the stage, and while it did turn a minor profit, the film just completely falls flat.

No one in this film is believable in their roles. There is no hunger, no fire in their eyes. It’s just cold and dead. This film feels exactly what it is, a bunch of actors reciting lines, and not once did I feel pulled into their stories.

A massive let down on just about every level.

The Color Purple

Going from the rote performances of A Chorus Line to the transcendent turns of The Color Purple was downright near whiplash.

The film follows Celie (Desreta Jackson as young Celie, Whoopi Goldberg as adult Celie) across multiple decades of her life that see her go from a sexually abused child to a woman who eventually finds her own way in the South of the early 20th Century.

Let me just get this out of the way from the jump: Every single actor in this film delivers an unbelievable performance. Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey in particular shine here, but no one was slacking to be sure.

That being said, I do not feel Steven Spielberg was the right choice to direct here. His instincts are always to lean toward the sentimental moments, and this is a harsh story to its core. It is constantly interrupted by swelling music, hopeful shots, and more of his worst instincts.

Spielberg is a master director without question, but that doesn’t mean his style can be plugged into every style of story, and it doesn’t feel like it worked here.

It’s still a worthwhile film, but you have to wonder how much greater it could have been with someone else directing it.

Enemy Mine

Some times a film just proves how valuable a good editor is.

Set in 2092, Humans are at war with the reptilian Dracs. Willis E. Davidge (Dennis Quad) crash lands on a planet with a Drac named Jeriba “Jerry” Shigan (Louis Gossett Jr.) after a dogfight, and the two have to rely on one another for survival.

I’ve enjoyed this movie since I first watched as a video rental back in the 80s. Gossett is so hidden in the makeup it’s unfathomable to think you know the actor in the costume. And Quaid turns in a really strong performance as well leaving you with a truly enjoyable sci-fi romp.

But… the editing. Late in the film when Davidge is rescued, he is accused by higher ranking officers of being in league with the Drac, and this is capped off by everyone hearing him speak the Drac language. The implication is clear they think he is a traitor.

In the very next scene he is clean shaven, healed, and walking in his uniform on his way to steal a starfighter to fulfill a promise he made to Jerry.

So, either a scene was cut of him clearing his name, or maybe we should have never had the scene implying he was a traitor? It was a jarring jump in logic, and shows just how important editing can be to a film.

Out of Africa

I have never been more bored while watching something so pretty.

Danish aristocrat Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep) moves to Africa to marry her friend, Baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and set up a farm. While there, she meets Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) and becomes enamored with him, eventually leaving her husband for him.

The film is semi-autobiographical, just proving that not every biography, no matter how exotic, needs to be turned into a film. Between Streeps horrific attempt an accent, and far too many details about everyone’s life, the only thing I enjoyed was the scenery, and even that was a stretch at times.

Quite glad to never have to revisit this film.

1985 Movie Reviews will return on Dec. 27, 2025, with Murphy’s Romance, Revolution, and The Trip to Bountiful.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ – Catholic Review

Published

2 days ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

NEW YORK (OSV News) – “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (20th Century), the third film in the always visually rich franchise that got its start in 2009, brings forward thematic elements that had previously been kept in the background and that viewers of faith will find it impossible to accept and difficult to dismiss. As a result, it requires careful evaluation by mature movie fans.

Against the recurring background of the fictional moon Pandora, the saga of the family whose fortunes were chronicled in the earlier chapters continues. The clan consists of dad Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) as well as their three surviving children, teens Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and tyke Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss).

Rounding out the household is Jake and Neytiri’s adolescent adopted son, Spider (Jack Champion).

As veterans of the earlier outings will know, Jake was originally a human and a Marine. But, via an avatar, he eventually embraced the identity of Neytiri’s Pandoran tribe, the Na’vi. While their biological kids are to all appearances Na’vi — a towering race with blue skins and tails — Spider is human and requires a breathing mask to survive on Pandora.

Lo’ak is guilt-ridden over his role in the death of his older brother, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), and wants to redeem himself by proving his worth as a warrior. Kiri is frustrated that, despite her evident spiritual gifts, she’s unable to connect with Eywa, the mother goddess the Na’vi worship.

For his part, Jake is worried about Spider’s future — Neteyam’s death has left the still-grieving Neytiri with a hatred of the “Sky people,” as Earthlings are known on Pandora. He also has to contend with the ongoing threat posed by his potentially deadly rivalry with his former Marine comrade, Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who is also Spider’s estranged father.

As if all that weren’t enough, a further challenge arises when the Metkayina, the sea-oriented Pandorans with whom Jake et al. have taken refuge, are attacked by the fierce fire-centric Mangkwan, led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), a malevolent sorceress. A three hour-plus running time is required to tie up these varied strands.

Along the way, the religion adhered to by the main characters becomes more prominent than in previous installments. Thus Eywa is both present on screen and active in the plot. Additionally, Kiri is revealed to have been the product of a virginal conception.

Director and co-writer (with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver) James Cameron’s extension of his blockbuster series, accordingly, not only includes material uncomfortable at best for Christians but also seems incongruent, overall, with monotheistic belief. Even well-catechized grown-ups, therefore, should approach this sprawling addition to Cameron’s epic with caution.

The film contains nonscriptural beliefs and practices, constant stylized but often intense combat violence with brief gore, scenes of torture, narcotics use, partial nudity, a couple of mild oaths, at least one rough term, numerous crude and a handful of crass expressions and an obscene gesture. The OSV News classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.