TL;DR – While it had its clunky moments, the first episode does a good job of setting up this world that we are about to dive into.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Review –

Today, we are looking at an interesting show because I feel that it has all the cards stacked against it. It is a live-action remake of a beloved property made by Netflix, and there is a graveyard behind us of failed attempts at this. Then there were the original creators leaving because of some pretty significant creative differences before we got one of the most ill-fated press campaigns, which was probably only tempers because Madame Webb was happening at the same time. However, a rocky production does not mean the end product is not great, and this is what we are looking at today.  

So to set the scene, in the world of Avatar, there are four elements that people can bend: Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. However, only the Avatar can bend all four elements and use this to keep the peace between the different tribes. However, while the world waits for the next Avatar to come from the Air Tribe, the leader of the Fire Tribe, Fire Lord Sozin (Hiro Kanagawa), uses the moment of Sozin’s Comet’s appearance to attack the Air Temples all he has to do is kill the Avatar before they are announced, the only problem is that no one knows who it is, so they have to kill all of them. But they were not ready for the rambunctious Aang (Gordon Cormier), who had different ideas that fated night.

Now, I am going into this review with some experience with the universe. I watched all of the original series and generally liked it. It had some intense moments, even though it was pitched at a much younger audience than I was when I finally watched it. I did try to give Kora a watch but lost it somewhere during season two. So, I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for the show, but I do have a general sense of how it should all go. (I also watched the movie, but I don’t think that counts)  

The key strength of this series is the young actors; they have a lot of clunky dialogue to get through, and they mostly make it work. The overarching narrative does align pretty much with the original show. This was in addition to exploring a lot more detail about how the Air Temples were genocided, which was confronting to see, even more so with current circumstances. It is held back a bit by the more cartoony aspects that don’t translate to live-action very well. It will be interesting to see how all the different hybrid animals work going forward. Also, the action scenes worked well, but they only hinted at the potential yet to come.

From a production perspective, I had to put the subtitles on multiple times during the episodes because the audio balance felt out of whack for me, and I missed a lot of the dialogue. Then, there were a number of shots where it was clear that they were filmed on a green screen. You can forgive in the wide, but it is very noticeable in the extreme close-ups, which is frustrating because there are other moments where the visuals are quite stunning, creating this visual dissonance that is hard to shift.    

In the end, do we recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender – Aang? Well, it is clunky in places, and there are some apparent issues. Overall, I did like this first episode because I think the cast is strong enough to pull me in. Now, if the whole series can work like this, then I will be happy.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Avatar: The Last Airbender yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Avatar: The Last Airbender
Directed by – Michael Goi
Written by – Albert Kim, Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko
Created by – Albert Kim
Based On – Avatar: The Last Airbender by Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko
Production/Distribution Companies – Nickelodeon & Netflix
Starring – Gordon Cormier, Kiawentiio, Ian Ousley, Dallas Liu & Paul Sun-Hyung Lee with Lim Kay Siu, Casey Camp-Horinek, Hiro Kanagawa, Yvonne Chapman, Ruy Iskandar, Clyde Kusatsu, David Sakurai & Matt Yang King and Leo Chiang, Jeff Yung, Jayden Zhang, Dorian Giordano, Silver Kim, Simon Leung & Linda Minard