Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Review

Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is a series that is loved by children and adults. It’s a fantasy-action series that combined martial arts, Eastern philosophy and spiritual beliefs, anime, drama, and comedy in a wondrous package. The series gets a feature-length follow-up with Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender.

The world is at peace after the Hundred Years’ War, and Republic City is founded as a home for all nations. Avatar Aang (Eric Nam) spends his time finding Air Nomad relics and preserving their history. When he gets attacked by a group of skilled non-benders called The Denied, he finds out about a lost Airbender called Sonam and a staff that could restore the Air Nomads. Aang calls on his friends to join him on his quest to find the staff before the Denied.

Avatar: The Last Airbender has been considered one of the best animated shows ever made and has spawned a large franchise. There was a sequel series, The Legend of Korra, which had a mixed reception, although I enjoyed it, and a second sequel series, Avatar: Seven Havens, is set to be released in October 2026. There have also been comic books, a fighting game, a live-action series on Netflix, and, most regrettably, the M. Night Shyamalan film. Avatar Aang was set to have a wide theatrical release, but this was scaled back to two theatres in the United States and a straight-to-streaming release.

Avatar Aang had to perform a triple duty: it needed to be a follow-up to the original series, tell a standalone story, and be accessible for a new audience. Avatar Aang was clearly made with a new audience in mind since the film was front-loaded with exposition and introduced them to the world. Avatar Aang’s story was inspired by the Chinese text Journey to the West because Aang finds a lost Airbender, and a group of adventurers go on a dangerous journey into the unknown to find an ancient artefact. The other aspect of the story was the relationship between Aang and Tagah (Dave Bautista), an Airbender who was frozen for centuries. Their experiences were similar, which allowed the men to bond, but they ended up having different outlooks on the world.

For long-time fans, Avatar Aang had two problems that it struggled to overcome. The first was the 90-minute run, excluding the end credits. The TV series had time to slowly build up its world and introduce new elements and history slowly. Avatar Aang had to do this much more quickly, and it felt like the film was having to speed through everything. The Denied as an organisation were undefined. They hated benders because they oppressed the non-benders, but it was never shown. The first season of The Legend of Korra has a similar issue because it didn’t show any institutional or structural prejudice.

The short runtime meant that many of the characters were underserved. Zuko (Steven Yeun) and Toph (Dionne Quan) were basically the muscle, and Sokka (Román Zaragoza) was done dirty because he was relegated to being a wacky inventor. Jie (Peta Sergeant), the leader of the Denied, was a generic secondary villain who was determined to the point of foolhardiness. Two of the biggest voice actors in the films were basically comic relief cameos, especially the actor/director from New Zealand.

The bigger issue for fans was that they know what happens next. The Legend of Korra showed that Aang wasn’t able to restore the Air Nomads, and the only Airbenders were Aang’s son and grandkids, until the third season. It made the film feel low-stakes. A similar issue afflicted The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, where Legolas was a main character: he was never in any actual danger. The question in the film was how far Aang was willing to go to bring back the Air Nomads, but fans of the series already know his limits.

Whilst Avatar Aang was made for a new audience, there were a few references to the wider universe. Some notable side characters have cameos, and Tagah came from a time so long ago that he knew that lion-turtles bestow bending on humans. It was implied that Tagah came from the time straight after Avatar Wan. This detail is made slightly humorous because Steven Yeun played Avatar Wan in The Legend of Korra.

Where Avatar Aang stood out was its animation. The film had a different animation style from the series, but it was glorious. The film made the most of its bigger budget with ambitious animation techniques and camera movements. It’s essentially remarkable considering the TV shows had a high standard of animation. There were impressive action sequences in the film. My favourite was the first action scene where Aang fought a group of highly skilled Denied warriors. The film still had anime inspiration, used for comedic moments that felt similar to KPop Demon Hunters. Avatar Aang and KPop Demon Hunters would make good companion pieces.

Avatar Aang was the streamlined version of a beloved IP. It looks fantastic and serves as a taster for newbies, but it will be inconsequential to fans. It would have been better served as a TV series.