'Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender'
Credit: Paramount
Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite animated series of all time. I’m not a huge anime fanatic, but I fell in love with the old Nickelodeon series instantly. The world, the characters, the magic. The blend of humor and much more serious, heartfelt themes. The characters grew and changed over the course of three seasons (or Books) and 61 episodes. and everything culminated in one of the finest series finales ever created.
I loved the series so much that I never bothered watching the (apparently disastrous) live-action movie. I also couldn’t force myself through the first season of Netflix’s live-action TV series adaptation, which felt wrong tonally on too many levels to count. But I enjoyed The Legend of Korra a great deal (and I suppose I watched it without reading any of the many negative things people had to say about it at the time it first aired, so I made up my own mind and walked away mostly very satisfied. It wasn’t as good as the original, but there was much to love in the sequel series, including many wonderfully complex villains. We’ll touch on this a bit more later on in this review). Korra was four seasons long, though they were shorter and it ran for just 52 episodes.
In any case, it is with both pleasure and regret that I write this review of the new animated film, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. I’ll get the basic premise out of the way first, but this is a spoiler-free review so don’t worry about getting spoiled beyond what the marketing materials have already given us. There was a leak of the entire film, so spoilers are out there already, unfortunately.
What Is ‘Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender’ About?
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender
Credit: Paramount
The logline reads: “Avatar Aang, the world’s last Airbender, learns of an ancient power that could save his culture from extinction. With the help of his friends, he embarks on a global quest to find it before it falls into the wrong hands and threatens to upend the peace they sacrificed everything to achieve.”
Thirteen years have passed since the original series and the defeat of Fire Lord Ozai. Aang and his friends, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Aang’s nemesis-turned-ally, Zuko, defeated the Fire Lord and the aggressions of the Fire Nation (which attacked, by the way) and have begun the hard work of building a peaceful world, where the four nations – Earth, Fire, Water and Air – can live together in harmony. The world we see, essentially, in The Legend of Korra. That series takes place 70 years after the original series, which places this movie much closer to the original than to the sequel.
Everyone is grown-up now, but still young men and women. Aang is now voiced by Eric Nam, Katara by Jessica Matten, Sokka by Roman Zaragoza, Toph by Dionne Quan and Zuko by Steven Yeun. Other notable actors include Davie Bautista as Tagah, an ancient airbender who, much like Aang himself, was frozen in ice; and Taika Waititi who plays the spirt Gorillavark. Dee Bradley Baker reprises his role as both Appa and Momo, Aang’s pets (a flying bison and a lemur, respectively).
Despite the peace and goodwill following the Hundred Year War, Aang is unhappy and lonesome. He is still the last Airbender, his people having been wiped out by the Fire Nation while he was in his icy hibernation. When he discovers Tagah he learns of a powerful staff that could bring back the Air Nomads, and together with his old friends they set off on a new quest. A mysterious group of non-benders called The Denied are also after the staff, and cause plenty of trouble for our heroes.
What follows is spoiler territory, so we’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say, adventure and betrayal and plenty of action follows.
What Works In ‘Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender’
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender
Credit: Paramount
The first thought I had watching Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender was more of a wish: I wish that Avatar Studios and Studio Mir would take the original series and reanimate it in widescreen with the gloriously lovely, absolutely beautiful animation in this film. I wouldn’t want anything else changed. Not the script or the voice-actors or anything. Just a gorgeous overhaul of the entire series. Because this movie looks gorgeous.
It also captures the humor and fun of the original series. Sokka is his charming, goofy self. Katara is still the cool-headed voice of reason. Zuko doesn’t get as much screentime as I would have liked, but I think Zuko’s arc in the original was so interesting because it was so dynamic. This Zuko is older, calmer, wiser and the Fire Lord of his nation. Toph is quite funny as well, and still the greatest Earthbender in the world.
The story is also quite fun, with some nice twists and turns, and villains that remind me much more of The Legend of Korra than Avatar: The Last Airbender. Once again, more on that in a minute.
Overall, it’s a really good, very briskly paced film that wraps up nicely in the end. And in a lot of ways, even though that makes for a really satisfying little movie, it’s also the thing that bothered me the most.
‘Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender’ Should Have Been A New TV Series
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender
Credit: Paramount
The great thing about Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend Of Korra is that both shows were, well, shows. There was room for side adventures. Big, overarching conflicts took a long time to resolve. A 90-odd-minute movie just can’t include all the fun little side-quests and character development and world-building that a full season can contain, and I found myself really wanting that. Perhaps that’s not a fair criticism, but I also don’t think it’s wrong to want more of a good thing.
Because this was a movie, we really didn’t have time to really let a lot of the storylines develop. We rushed through the entire thing, spending far too little time with certain characters who have, for instance, changes of heart. Or characters who are just wacky and fun. The quest is setup and executed and resolved and that’s that. The end. Yes, there’s some fun action and dire conflict, but the story itself is never allowed to really stretch its wings 0r, well, flying bison tail.
This should have been a new season of TV. That is simply a belief I cannot shake having watched the movie and sat with it and pondered why I came away both happy with it and deeply disappointed. Such complicated feelings. Such a hard thing to review, really, because I liked it but I feel as though its creators did the entire story and all its characters a grave injustice by limiting it to what is, effectively, one very short, truncated season of The Last Airbender.
This is actually a similar criticism to the new Mandalorian \& Grogu film, which also felt like an extended episode (or three) of The Mandalorian series. I suppose with that one, I didn’t mind as much because The Mandalorian had gotten pretty terrible by its third season, whereas I think The Last Airbender has so much potential for more stories set in this bright, colorful, imaginative world.
I keep coming back to the villains of The Legend of Korra (partly because they’re so great) because the villains in Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender really felt like something of a retread of these. The Denied are anti-benders, which certainly reminds me of Amon and the anti-bending equality movement in Book 1: Air. And there are more than a few echoes of Book 3: Change and its chief antagonist, Zaheer, though I won’t go into detail there.
Perhaps, given a full 12 (or 20) episode season, these similarities would have been less obvious, or we’d have been given time to let the characters, both hero and villain, grow in new ways. Ultimately, however much fun Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender was, it felt like a story that was condensed into something far smaller than it deserved to be. I hope it’s a huge success, however, and that we get more stories set in this timeline, with Aang and his crew rebuilding the world, facing new threats, and learning new things about themselves and their ever-changing place in this story – not to mention new characters who we can spend time with and grow to love or hate or, more likely, have complicated feelings about.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender debuts on Paramount+ on Saturday, July 25 and will also show in select theaters. I definitely recommend the film to fans of the original. I just wish there had been about . . . 17 more episodes to fill in the gaps.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Credits:
- Directed By: Lauren Montgomery
- Co-DirectedBy: Steve Ahn and William Mata
- Producers: Latifa Ouaou, Maryann Garger, Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino
- Screenplay By: Tim Hedrick and Christopher Yost
- Story By: Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Tim Hedrick and Kenneth Lin
- Based on the Animated Series Created By:Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko
- Avatar Aang: The Last Airbenderpremieres on Paramount+ July 25, 2026 at 12:00 AM PT / 3:00 AM ET.