Since Avatar: The Last Airbenderended its three-season run on Nickelodeon in 2008, no one has been able to quite recapture its magic. M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 live-action film was an unmitigated disaster. Netflix’s live-action series alternates between being too brutal in its portrayal of the horrors of war and so faithful to the source material it feels unnecessary, while lacking all the charm of the animated series. Even the show’s original creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, faltered with their sequel The Legend of Korra, which had moments of greatness but also spent too much time on YA tropes and mediocre villains. It took nearly 20 years, but Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender finally delivers the worthy follow-up fans have been waiting for.

Director Lauren Montgomery worked on the original Avatar and Korra, along with some of the best animated adaptations of DC Comics like Batman: Year One, Young Justice, and All-Star Superman, and she puts all that experience to work here. Montgomery combines her expertise to make Avatar Aang feel like a Superman movie. Her film leans on the similarities between the two powerful heroes, both the last survivors of a lost culture, while pulling from classic DC storytelling to give Aang a worthy new challenge.

Montgomery beautifully recaptures the old magic of The Last Airbender by opening with a flashback to a young Aang (Sander Argabrite) soaring with his fellow Airbenders and getting a bit of wisdom from his playful mentor Monk Gyatso (Francois Chau). But the dream of Aang’s happy childhood becomes a nightmare fueled by his unresolved trauma as a survivor of genocide, and the adult Aang (Eric Nam) wakes up comforted by his loyal pets, Appa and Momo (Dee Bradley Baker). An extended version of the original’s iconic opening sequence continues the refresher, calling back to key moments from the series to reintroduce the rest of the main characters and the state of the world.

While Aang's friends have spent the years after defeating Fire Lord Ozai working on improving the world – laying much of the groundwork for the big changes to the setting in Korra – he's still living in the past. Aang spends most of his time collecting lost Air Nomad artifacts in the Southern Air Temple, which has effectively become his Fortress of Solitude.

When a group of militant nonbenders called the Denied steals one of Aang’s recent finds, the Avatar rounds up his best friends to find out what they’re up to. This is mostly an Aang movie, but the rest of the cast at least gets a bit of time to shine as the call to action interrupts their projects. Sokka (Román Zaragoza) being mocked by Water Tribe kids as he dreams up new tech and Fire Lord Zuko (Steven Yeun) dealing with protocol-obsessed bureaucrats really help establish that while the characters have grown up, they’re still very much the same people. The bonds between them are never in real doubt, even if they might question Aang’s priorities. The plot could easily have been a classic MacGuffin hunt, but the writers keep it character driven by making it clear Aang’s hope and grief are driving this quest more than any threat from the Denied.

Image: Paramount Plus

The key to a good Superman story is creating conflicts that can’t just be solved with raw power while also forcing the hero to fight villains who are so dangerous no one else stands a chance. Avatar Aang has plenty of both, whether it’s limiting Aang by having him fight in a fragile environment or making him go toe-to-toe with an extremely powerful bender who is trying to destroy an entire city.

Aang’s quest leads him to Tagah (Dave Bautista), an ancient airbender who was also frozen in ice. Bautista does a phenomenal job of effectively playing Aang’s version of General Zod, a highly charismatic antagonist who offers Aang so much hope and power in the form of lost knowledge before revealing his true nature. Tagah is a classic dark mirror, urging Aang to abandon his values of peace and forgiveness to prioritize strength as a way to ensure his people are never victimized again. Avatar: The Last Airbender was remarkable for putting a nuanced portrayal of the effects of war in a kids' show, and the writers of Avatar Aang skillfully build on those threads without the sort of gratuitous violence Netflix’s Avatar has leaned on.

Image: Paramount Plus

Meanwhile, Flying Bark Productions and Studio Mir do a phenomenal job with the animation, leaning further into the original show’s anime sensibilities with a huge variety of fight scenes that alternate between emphasizing the precise detail of an arrow being fired and the rich environments dismantled by enormous explosions. Jeremy Zuckerman handled the music for Avatar and Korra, and in Avatar Aang, he’s created another awe-inspiring score that shows his mastery for building tension and creating exultant moments of peace and triumph. Even though it’s only getting a very limited theatrical run, the film deserves to be watched on the biggest screen with the best sound system you can find to fully appreciate its epic scope.

Avatar Aang's only flaw is that it can be a bit too heavy on the fan service, cramming in some of the show’s biggest memes and even fanfic references. A detour into the spirit realm feels like a waste of time in the otherwise tight 90-minute film, and it’s one of the points where the writers don’t quite strike the right balance between evoking the original’s cartoony charm and the heaviness of a more adult story.

But the movie is a must-watch for fans of the original show who have been looking for a way to spend more time with their favorite characters. It stands alone as a transition point between Avatar and Korra, but also feels like it could easily kick off a new adult-focused series that would give the rest of Team Avatar their own glorious moment in the spotlight. Avatar Aang is the first project from Avatar Studios, the production company DiMartino and Konietzko launched in 2021. The fact that they've finally been able to replicate what made the series so special is a great sign for the franchise’s future.

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender premieres in select theaters on July 24 and is available to stream on Paramount Plus on July 25.