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Avatar – The Last Airbender Review
We’re back in the Airbender universe with a blue-eyed youngster in live action after twenty years of waiting… who, in an attempt to save the broken world, spends a century trapped inside an iceberg. What an exciting journey
If you’re unfamiliar with the world of the Airbenders, Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix is a live-action adaptation of the well-liked 2005 Nickelodeon animated series of the same name. It has ties to the 2010 live-action adaptation of the cartoon The Last Airbender directed by M Night Shyamalan, but none of the Airbender properties have anything to do with Avatar, the highest-grossing film of all time, whose copyright attorneys secured the desirable one-word title.
Despite having to include a colon and an awkward subheading in its title, Avatar: The Last Airbender went on to become one of the most popular animated shows ever. The fan base remains, eager to pick up where the story left off nearly twenty years later.
Avatar – The Last Airbender Review
With a world divided between kingdoms that are either constantly at war or on the verge of it, where young people have a rare impact, and where magical talents can be utilized or misused, the storyline is reminiscent of a plethora of fantasy television shows. Here, the elements fire, earth, water, and air define different zones. Within each of these populations live “benders,” individuals who possess the power to manipulate and manipulate their native element.
One individual, known as the Avatar, has the capacity to learn how to bend all four elements at once and develop into an all-powerful celestial peacekeeper whose eyes become blue when they’re about to take out a bad guy.
Avatar – The Last Airbender Review
The first episode presents 12-year-old Aang (Gordon Cormier), a gifted airbender who has just learned the startling news that he is the next Avatar from his elders. Then, using a comet that gives them more power, the evil fire people invade and destroy every airbender, killing only Aang. After hanging inside an iceberg for a hundred years, he emerges and teams up with 14-year-old Katara (Kiawentiio) and her warrior older brother Sokka (Ian Ousley) to finish his training and restore the broken world.
It is not intended to hold us back that we don’t know how Aang realized he should imprison himself inside an icy pod, or how the comet operated, or how people discovered he was the Avatar. This is an old story about a young person with great dreams. Aang would prefer to ignore his fate and act like a typical child. He hails from a tribe that helpfully has face tattoos in the shape of a large arrow pointing down towards the face, so everyone can tell this is the main person, right here.
One of the many spot-on bits of conversation that emphasize the idea that this garlanded boy will have to give up his youth in order to carry out his sacred obligations is “I never asked to be special!”
Avatar – The Last Airbender Review. But soon after, Aang meets Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu), a prince of the belligerent Fire Nation, for the first time. We learn that Prince Zuko is a self-hating villain due of his facial deformity (part of the somewhat unsettling visual grammar of the fantasy genre). The burn scar across his eye indicates that he is an exile with violent impulses and unresolved fatherhood concerns, having been rejected by the monarch.
The arrow on Aang’s head starts to glow, and he accepts his calling and says, “Yes, let’s Av it,” as he shows that he is willing to follow Zuko across continents in the hopes of capturing the new Avatar and proving himself to the people back home. Aang’s eyes turn blue at this point.
Thus, Aang and his friends are pursued from one place to another. Katara and Sokka’s native country bears a striking resemblance to Alaska, while the island kingdom the brave three travel to next is distinctly designed to evoke the atmosphere of medieval Japan. Everywhere they travel, they acquire life lessons and participate in hand-to-hand fighting.
The highly choreographed action sequences give ordinary martial arts battles a thrilling twist by pitting benders of various elements against one another. Avatar – The Last Airbender Review
Avatar – The Last Airbender Review
Will water evaporate in a fire? Can water make the land muddy? Will the air extinguish the fire or will it create a negative feedback loop that exacerbates the situation?
The youthful actors are up to the challenge, the scenery is breathtaking, and there’s a gigantic flying bison with six legs that transports everyone over the clouds. With Cormier giving Aang the perfect balance of boyish cheek and natural authority, Ousley and Kiawentiio create a wonderfully spiky sibling relationship as Sokka and Katara, and the three of them maintain the idea that a child and two teenagers can defeat genocidal authoritarians with wholesome pluck, gentle sarcasm, and the power to summon a hurricane. There will be more episodes of the Airbender franchise because it has boldly come back to life.
Avatar – The Last Airbender Review
Starring alongside Elizabeth Yu, Ken Leung, Maria Zhang, and Lim in Avatar: The Last Airbender are Utkarsh Ambudkar, Danny Pudi, C.S. Lee, Yvonne Chapman, Kay Siu, and Amber Midthunder. On February 22nd, all eight episodes of the first season were released on Netflix.
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