Josh Reviews Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender

I’d spent years hearing from friends about how wonderful the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender was.  During Covid, my kids and I watched the show together, and we thought it was great!!  I loved the characters and the world-building in this delightfully rich fantasy world, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the story unfold over the exceedingly well-crafted and well-structured three season arc.  (We also went on to watch the follow-up series The Legend of Korra, which we enjoyed as well.)  For years, we’ve been hearing about new projects in this world from creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino,.  (They were originally involved with the live-action remake project, though they departed due to the dreaded “creative differences”.)  It’s been a long wait, but the first new project fully overseen by the original creators has finally arrived, the feature-length animated movie Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender.  (It’s available to stream now on Paramount+!)

This movie checks in on Aang & co. several years after the events of the show.  As the movie opens, Aang is exploring old Airbender temples, searching for a connection with his lost people.  The peace is shattered when a group of non-Benders calling themselves “the Denied” attack Aang.  It seems they’re looking for relics connected to Sonam, a long-lost Avatar who has somehow cut herself off from the chain of past-life Avatars with whom Aang can commune in the sprit world.  Aang re-assembles “team Avatar”, and the gang attempts to get ahead of the Denied.  To their surprise, their quest leads them to discover someone from long-ago frozen atop a mountain — not a former Avatar or the weapon they thought the Denied were looking for, but another Airbender!  Suddenly, Aang is no longer the last of his kind!

I enjoyed this movie!  It’s a pleasure to return to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I loved getting to see what Aang and his friends are like now that they’re twenty-somethings!  (I think?  The movie doesn’t exactly make clear how old they are.  I think they’re in their mid-twenties.)

I enjoyed the new voice-actors who brought these new, more grown-up versions of these beloved characters to life.  It does take a little getting used to, hearing these new voices.  Part of me wishes they’d stuck with the original (fantastic) voice-cast.  But I like this new group, and I quickly settled in and enjoyed these new voices.  Eric Nam voices Aang; Jessica Matten voices Katara; Román Zaragoza voices Sokka; Dionne Quan voices Toph; and Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Invincible) voices Zuko.  This is a great group, and they each managed to make the characters their own.  Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Dune) is terrific as Tagah, the newly-discovered Airbender.  I like the gravity that Mr. Bautista brought to the character.  We also get to hear Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies, Everything Everywhere All at Once) as Avatar Xian, Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) as the spirit Gorillavark; Geraldine Viswanathan (Drive-Away Dolls, Thunderbolts*) as Kallik, a member of the Denied; and Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire; Rise of the Planet of the Apes) as Avatar Sonam.  This is a really strong group of actors.  It’s nice to see such a high-caliber cast involved in this project!

The animation was strong.  It’s a different style than that of the show, but I didn’t mind the changes.  This style felt a little more grown-up to me, a little more sophisticated, which felt right for this story with these more grown-up versions of the characters.  We still got some of the playfulness in the animation of the characters’ expressions that was so much a part of the look and feel of the original show.  There’s some fun with Sokka in particular that I thought was very well done.  I was particularly taken with the gorgeous backgrounds.  We get to see some beautiful vistas, and there are some particularly striking action sequences that really caught my eye, such as the collapse of the mountain after the Airbender Tagah is awoken.  Very cool stuff.

I’ll be honest that the film is not a home-run.  The story is fairly predictable; I’d bet most viewers could predict most of the story’s major plot points.  I was hoping for something that felt more epic in our first Avatar movie.  I also think that the rest of “team Avatar” weren’t well used.  On the one hand, I was glad that Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Zuko were in so much of the movie.  (With the title of Avatar Aang, I’d worried we’d just see most of Aang’s friends in cameos.)  But while the gang has a lot of screen time, they don’t actually have much to do in the story.  There’s no real character development for anyone outside of Aang.  That’s a let-down.

While this movie didn’t blow me away, it was certainly an enjoyable hour and a half.  It made me very happy to return to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  I hope there is more to come!!  I’d love to watch a series of these animated movies, continuing to explore what happened to Aang and his friends after the original series.  (Meanwhile, there’s lots more Avatar: The Last Airbender content coming!!  The second season of the live-action show is out — I’ve seen it, and my review will be coming.  There’s also a new animated series coming: Seven Havens.  I’m a little worried that looks like it might be more aimed at younger kids, but I’ll definitely give it a chance.)

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