Fans of Avatar will likely be pleased that it did not take over a decade for James Cameron’s subsequent return to Pandora. But while the previous picture, The Way of Water, found more to explore on the alien planet, Fire and Ash doesn’t travel far from the familiar in tone, story beats, themes, and even locations. Returning to so much of the same after so little time feels less like a new adventure through exciting territory and more like a reprisal, trying and failing to recapture the same magic.

The war between the Na’vi and humans still rages on Pandora, with many of the same issues. Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are still trying to adapt to the water-based Metkayina clan, but they still haven’t fully adapted. While Jake tries to make the case that they should be salvaging guns for the next human attack, Neytiri grapples with the grief of one of her sons from the previous film. That trauma of loss and the search for some sense in spirituality and a turn from the hatred it could breed would be a fascinating angle to explore, but, like many of the subplots in this film, it feels more like busywork, falling back on platitudes. That same sense of underdevelopment can be felt with the other kids: Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) tries to stand up for dishonored sealife, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) struggles with feeling like an outsider, and the human Spider (Jack Champion) also feels like an outsider for not being able to breathe the same air. There’s some deja vu in these arcs that still feel like they’re spinning wheels started in motion from the last movie.

Fire and Ash introduces a new tribe: the Mangkwan clan, a fire-based community hardened against the spiritual nature of Pandora, rejecting ecological connections for having lived a life surrounded by death. They’re led by the vicious Varang (Oona Chaplin), a violent woman who bobs and weaves around her violent army that cavorts around fires and likely enjoys licking blood off blades. Her drive is not all that hard to understand, representing all the blind fury that Neytiri could become. More inclined to embrace the bloodthirsty Varang is returning villain Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), still trapped in a Na’vi avatar and still seeking revenge against Jake, with the capture of his son Spider on his to-do list. Miles hasn’t changed much since the last film, still bound by wiping out Pandora’s resources with an unquestioning military and obnoxious capitalists, but he now has an evil Na’vi clan on his side. He does have some sexual attraction to the seductive Varang, but their relationship doesn’t seem to proceed anywhere all that intriguing beyond Miles teaching her how to use flamethrowers and Varang teaching him how the Na’vi can get super high on primo Pandora drugs. Fun as Miles’s trippy drug trip may be in IMAX 3D, it serves little more than a handful of punchlines.

The biggest problem with Fire and Ash is that it doesn’t explore anywhere as equally dazzling. The first Avatar film gave us the wondrous forests and sky islands, while the sequel indulged in the splendor of Pandora’s sea life, all explored through the clans introduced. What does the third film give us with the volcanic clan? Well, true to the title, it’s a desolate land of ash, bathed in a depressing haze of charred white. It’s not exactly the most original or interesting setting for an evil group of fire-worshiping warriors who desire to burn everything into oblivion. Cameron seems to be aware of how uninspired this environment is as he steers the obligatory chaotic climax back to the sea, where he is most at home. And while the action still looks nice and is packed with many scenes of Pandora’s natives versus Earth-made mech suits, there’s no way to look at the finale as anything more than a refrain. Not only does the film favor much of the same sea-bound carnage, but also the inevitable showdown between Jake and Miles, carrying all the emotional weight of a TV show villain you know will be back for the next episode.

The lack of new and wondrous discoveries on Pandora highlights just how flimsy this franchise can be when it veers from its visual splendor to focus more on plotlines that never become compelling in their broad strokes. It’s not that there isn’t something thematically meaty to explore here, but Cameron never holds long enough on anything. There are a half-dozen character arcs in this crowded ensemble that get watered down into simplistic monologues and resolutions, hurrying through the bullet points so the film can get to the next action sequence or the central plot involving more resource harvesting. Even at a beefy running time running well over three hours, it still feels like there isn’t enough room to partake in the few moments that showcase the stellar visual effects, such as the Wind Trader clan that seems to soar through the sky on giant membranes. I wanted more scenes like that, rather than Jake and Miles trading soldier slang while shaking their fists over land rights for the third time.

Fire and Ash is a return to Avatar that lacks the new eye candy and mesmerizing sensation of getting lost in another world. James Cameron made the first two Avatar films massive blockbusters by tantalizing audiences with something they hadn’t seen before, with incredible breakthroughs in visual effects filmmaking. Here, he plays it too safe with an adventure that feels like more of the same, with nothing all that impressive around the other corners of Pandora. If all that remains to be explored is a barren desert so dull that even the film’s big battle won’t be held there, there’s little reason to come racing back to this world so soon. While Avatar’s story has been heavily criticized for being as routine as films like Dances With Wolves and Dune, its big draw was the visuals, which were original, grand, and otherworldly sublime. But when all that VFX serves up more of the same for what feels like a lukewarm bridge film, Fire and Ash bleeds into all the generic sci-fi action films that it previously loomed over.