Hollywood loves nothing more than to gnaw at it Bones of already existing IPs. Whether a reboot is good or not, it almost certainly will be lucrative. When it comes to Avatar: The Last Airbender, The powers that be in the industry should have learned their lesson the first time. In 2010, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko’s Nickelodeon show received widespread attention one of the greatest animated series of the 21st centurywas adapted from M. Night Shyamalan In The Last Airbender. This film is widely considered to be one of the worst films of the 21st century. (We’re talking about a 5 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Unfortunately, it hasn’t stopped Netflix from making its flesh-and-blood, CGI adaptation. The best you can say is that they at least did a better job than Shyamalan.
Like the original, Albert Kim’s version of Avatar: The Last Airbender is a fantastical adventure story set in a world divided into four elemental cultures: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Within each of them, certain people called “tamers” are endowed with the ability to manipulate their native element, whether they use it to fight, heal, build, or fly. Then there is the Avatar, an eternally reincarnated Chosen One who can bend all four and whose job it is to maintain balance between humans and spirits alike.
When Avatar beg ins, Fire Lord Sozin (Hiro Kanagawa) has declared war on the world. He sets out to defeat his opponents one by one, first by wiping out the Air Nomads to end the Avatar cycle forever. A hundred years later, the world is still without defenders and the Fire Nation is steadily gaining ground. It turns out that our MIA hero, a 12-year-old airbender named Aang (Gordon Cormier), has been frozen in an iceberg for a century. Until Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley), a pair of teenage siblings from the Southern Water Tribe, unknowingly unfreeze him.
After an icy start, the three jump aboard Aang’s flying bison and head north so that the inexperienced young Avatar can learn to tame the other three elements and possibly save the Northern Water Tribe from a terrible fate. Along the way, Katara works on her waterbending, Sokka makes out with some ladies, and Aang comes to the aid of various people they meet along the way. But for our trio, bison riding isn’t always a walk in the park. They are pursued by Zuko (Dallas Liu), the exiled prince of the Fire Nation who cannot return home until he captures the Avatar. Zuko and his uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) are themselves pursued by Commander Zhao (Ken Leung), a Fire Nation soldier determined to capture Aang himself – and defeat the Northern Water Tribe as a reward. Meanwhile, Zuko’s father and sister make their own plans in the palace.
Series creator Kim (Nikita, Sleepy Hollow) and his team want to avoid the gravest sins of the 2010 film. Primarily, the characters in the East Asian and Inuit-inspired animated series were played almost exclusively by white or Indian actors. Netflixs avatar, On the other hand, there is a cast that reflects the world of animation. It is a welcome and significant change. The show also attempts to get closer to the atmosphere of the original with its colorful costumes and production design, gravity-defying action sequences, and sense of humor and wonder. The operative word here is tried because unfortunately the effort shows. DiMartino and Konietzko were initially involved in the adaptation, but withdrew in 2020 due to creative differences. And after eight awkward, uneven, hour-long episodes, it’s easy to guess what their objections were.
Like Aang’s air-bending, the original 22-minute series felt effortless with its top-notch character arcs, world-building, fight choreography, and humor. He managed to balance light-hearted road trip capers, thrills and heavy themes such as family trauma and the moral cost of war. This version, on the other hand, is complicated by stiff acting, slow pacing, robotic dialogue, touch-and-go CGI, and more exposition than an army of earthbenders can handle.
The first episode in particular is so story-rich and repetitive that newcomers to the world will no longer be impressed by it Avatar will probably be halfway between confused and bored. (In a particularly awkward scene, Sokka and Katara’s grandmother recites explanatory dialogue from the cartoon Opening credits Word by word). In an obvious nod to the fans, the show attempts to recreate some of the animated film’s most iconic scenes frame by frame: an angry Aang using his bending to level the Southern Air Temple and Zuko shooting vivid jets of fire from his wrists in an otherwise colorless world. But these sequences only illustrate what was lost in translation. There are things an animator’s pen can do that digital effects simply can’t.
While there are a few truly impressive set pieces, such as an acrobatic prison break and a terrifying encounter in the spirit world, most of them just feel lazy. A climactic waterbender-versus-waterbender showdown at the North Pole is about as exciting as watching two kids fight in the shallows. Also observe how adults bully and attack you cartoon
Some performances rise above the norm. A likable anti-hero with an epic character arc, Zuko is the most iconic character from the original series. Even though he’s paralyzed by the script, PIN15Liu does a good job of conveying the Fire Prince’s inner conflict, particularly in the flashbacks featuring the sinister Daniel Dae Kim in the role of his calculating, abusive father, King Ozai. Once he settles into his role, Ousley provides some much-needed comic relief as the wisecracking Sokka. Most other actors fail. Many of the younger actors seem lost, while the adults just seem bored.
In the end, it’s hard to say who made this version Avatar is for, Exactly. Fans of the original will be disappointed by the charmless, eerie depiction of the world they know and love. Newcomers could generally be put off. There’s an argument for live-action versions of popular animated series; Own Netflix One piece, is, for example, an exuberant remix of the classic anime that takes up its cartoon character with relish. Avatar: The Last Airbender tries so hard to bear the weight of his legacy that he ends up sweating.
Avatar: The Last Airbender Premieres on Netflix on February 22nd
Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated that there were 10 episodes. There are eight.
This story originally published At The AV Club.
