In a world where He-Man, Transformers, and My Little Pony, among others, seem to keep popping up again and again, it sure is nice when a new franchise comes along, and the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender certainly does fit that bill. Mixing various Asian cultures, martial arts, and the idea of “bending” in a world where most animals are combinations of real world animals, the original animated series was fun, unique, and something that Paramount doesn’t seem to know what to do with. The animated movie Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender was supposed to have a theatrical release, and while there was a limited theatrical release, the movie instead came out on Paramount+ for most fans. I don’t think Paramount really knows what to do with these characters.
Then again, I could easily say the same thing about Warner Brothers and their recent treatment of the Loony Tunes.
Set 13 years after the end of the original series, the original Team Avatar are all adults now, and Avatar Aang (Eric Nam) spends a good deal of his spare time finding Air Nomad artifacts to take back to the ruins of the Air Temple that, in his youth, he called home. However, when he is attacked by the Denied–nonbenders who resent their self-perceived second-class status–they take from Aang a hidden map inside a statue Aang didn’t even know was there. That means calling in the rest of the team, alongside trusty air bison Appa and lemur Momo (Dee Bradley Baker, the only returning voice actor), to go looking into the mystery an avatar, one of Aang’s own past lives, that he cannot find in the spirit world where Aang should be able to consult all of his past incarnations. Naturally, when Aang calls, his friends come running in the form of Republic City counselor/love interest Katara (Jessica Matten), Southern Water Tribe inventor and nonbender Sokka (Román Zaragoza), Fire Lord Zuko (Steven Yeun), and metalbending teacher Toph (Dionne Quan). These are Aang’s closest friends. Of course they will come to help him.
But there’s an unexpected complication: a long-frozen airbender, Tagah (Dave Bautista) is found. Tagah was in an ice ball similar to the one Aang froze himself in at the beginning of the 100 year war, only for much longer, and not only does he have some airbending skills he can teach Aang that Aang had no awareness of, but he offers hope: the forgotten Avatar had granted Tagah, a nonbender, the power to airbend with a magical staff, but retrieving the staff could return airbending to the world again. Aang need not be the last airbender! The journey will be treacherous, the Denied are right behind them, and Tagah has a few secrets of his own. Will Aang find a way to bring his people back?
Let’s start with the good stuff here: the animation is gorgeous, and one of the strengths of the original The Last Airbender series is the vividness of the characters. Aang, Sokka, Zuko, Toph, and Katara are all well-realized characters who made decisions based on their individualized character moments. For this new movie, the characters are older, but they also are still very much themselves. There’s a lot to like here for fans. Maybe Tagah’s true colors won’t be much of a surprise in the end, but the characters are still fun to spend time with. Factor in as well some nice guest voices by the likes of Taika Waititi, Key Huy Quan, and Ronnie Chieng, among others, and there really is a lot to like here.
As for the bad, there’s two issues I have with the movie. The first is one my girlfriend and I noted when we rewatched Rogue One after finishing working our way through Andor: the movie version speeds through the story at a much faster pace means everything seems to go too fast. Likewise, for me, if you’ve seen Legends of Korra, you may see some very familiar plot lines happening here and other moments that seem to exist to explain some of the changes between Aang’s show and Korra’s. That doesn’t make the movie bad, but it does mean it packs less suspense, a problem that often plagues prequels. Still, it was nice to visit that world and these characters again.
Grade: B-
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