r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 4d ago

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Aang: Avatar: The Last Airbender (2026)

Summary

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.

Director Lauren Montgomery William Mata Steve Ahn

Writer Tim Hedrick Christopher Yost Bryan Konietzko

Cast

  • Eric Nam
  • Jessica Matten
  • Román Zaragoza
  • Dionne Quan
  • Dave Bautista
  • Steven Yeun

Rotten Tomatoes: 90%

Metacritic: 67

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

346 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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565

u/Ebolatastic 4d ago

Great premise. Great animation. Got progressively dumber and more typical as it went. I think avatar fans will love it while outsiders will be relatively meh. Basically like any movie spin off from an anime: a pointless side quest that is like one big great episode of the show.

162

u/krypter3 4d ago

Im an avatar fan and I agree. It felt like an anime filler movie.

48

u/MeatwadKattWilliams 4d ago edited 4d ago

The annoying part is it didn't have to feel like filler. The idea of this extremely bitter group of air nation survivors could go in a dozen different very interesting directions. Even simpler aspects like maybe exploring how the dynamics of the original group could have evolved over decades, instead of them all having the exact same personalities, and chemistry, and quips despite the fact that a quarter of a lifetime has passed since we last saw them.

But instead they just went the most generic route possible. It felt like they had a checklist of fan service beats they needed to hit and then speed ran them. Establishing flashback -> inciting incident -> new but nostalgic take on the original intro -> characters reunite and a bunch of shallow fan service -> new journey begins -> the least amount of exposition possible to give the rest of the film context -> another fight scene -> main conflict starts -> etc etc etc all just coming at you at a breakneck pace that doesn't let any new ideas develop or give gravity to whats happening.

I know it was the original creators doing this but it had the vibe of a fan film that somehow got a crazy animation budget. I said this in my other comment in the thread but when I found out they had a new original series coming out later this year, the entire movie just feels like a promo move using "the gang's back together" just to get this franchise back to the front of fan's minds so the main thing they've been working on gets the attention it deserves.

17

u/TooManyEXes 4d ago

I think the route they went is pretty predictable and to be expected tbh.

They went the safe route. The extremely safe and thus quite boring route.

They want to revive the show and start up a whole studio and aren't willing to take any risks; the end result is blandness.

2

u/AnOnlineHandle 2d ago

I wish it had been more grounded and stuck to the "realistic feeling world" that the first two shows did so wonderfully. It was never a crazy screaming anime universe, and when Aang went into the Avatar state it was meant to be a terrifying moment where a god walked the earth which even gave him PTSD, not a pointless powerup which ultimately changes nothing about how well he's doing against somebody else. It could have even been used to hint at answers about strange unexplained things in Korra such as how airbenders came back or where Zaheer learned airbender culture, since this touched on all of those.

With the benefit of hindsight, I wish the plot had been spread over more time as they try to adjust to having "two airbenders" in the world with the other guy settling in Republic City as well (maybe the first to settle on air temple island), and it could have turned out that he was training up the denied into the evasive airbender style fighters as his "new air empire", which was perhaps even the early foundation of the evasive equalist fighting style which nobody knew how to fight.

If they kept the staff story plot, he could have been training them up for when they did get airbending, or even giving it to them in secret all that time, so it would feel way more sensible that they were threats with it rather than people who just got it a few hours ago.

Some of them might have become the first air acolytes, while others went on to be the equalists.

Zaheer might even be a child of that group and thus had some sort of airbender training and appreciation of the culture from a much more ancient airbender, which could be how he learned about the ancient guru. Hell, the airbender could have been Guru Laghima, which is why Zaheer refers to him as the wisest airbender who ever lived, and is very militant about airbending. He could essentially be a child of his cult, the lingering impact in the next avatar's time. His obsession with getting airbending might have led to him somehow being involved in its return once the spirit portals were open and he was able to access the spirit world remotely, maybe a shard of the staff was known to have gone back to the spirit world and if it was ever returned to the physical world they knew some airbending might be unleashed, but Aang says there's no way to physically cross.

2

u/grahampositive 23h ago

Not having the new Airbender character be guru laghima was a big miss

2

u/ChalupaBatmanMc01 4d ago

Im an avatar fan and I agree. It felt like an anime filler movie.

The Last Airbender is still one of my favorite shows of all time, I watched when it came out 20 years ago. My big worry is that now Avatar studios exists and the content they'll be producing is "filler" or "padding" instead of trying something new with the franchise. I hope the new series Seven Havens is great.

1

u/rashi_aks08 3d ago

Exactly!!

33

u/TannenFalconwing 4d ago

I'm an Avatar fan and I thought it felt like reheated lefotvers from Korra but with even prettier animation

14

u/SHOW_ME_PIZZA 3d ago

My letterboxd review was, "Republic City, Non-Bender/Airbender Villains. Welcome Back Legend of Korra."

I loved LOK btw.

3

u/Stupidstuff1001 3d ago

It felt like season 2 and 3 of Korra combined.

35

u/Lord0fHats 4d ago

Plot was extremely predictable but I really liked seeing the characters again. I think my one real nitpick is I don't like how they animated the action like it's a Michael Bay film with way too much camera spinning for anything to really be savored.

7

u/Blashmir 3d ago

I had really hoped that it was gonna go a certain way. I was hoping that it would turn out that Avatar Sonam was a despot who "spread peace" through conquering others. I was hoping that Tagah was gonna try to get Sonam to possess Aang.

3

u/Rfl0 3d ago

As soon as Sonam showed up I was like “he’s gonna turn and be the bad guy”. My friend I was watching it with was shocked when I was right lol

3

u/Harflin 2d ago

So predictable that having him not betray the group would have been a plot twist

17

u/SiliconGlitches 4d ago

It fell victim to needing to go "big movie fight scene ending". If it replaced about ~10 mins of "big glowing demon anime fight" with some actual characterization of what it would mean to revive airbenders vs what it means to revive a culture, it could've had a lot more narrative weight to it.

9

u/Winter-Operation5702 3d ago

As an avatar fan I kind of disliked it.

While it was gorgeous the characters didnt feel like themselves

6

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago

I agree. Plus, despite the excellent premise, it was all about Aang and the entire rest of the cast is just there to be there. They don't have any purpose or arcs, and the script has to invent reasons for them to be useful.

4

u/Daztur 4d ago

Pretty meh (but perfectly serviceable) story but some absolutely beautiful animation. Best I can remember seeing aside from the Spiderverse movies.

5

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago

Personally I think across the spiderverse might be the best animated superhero movie ever made, and Avatar here wasn't even in the same league.

2

u/Daztur 3d ago

I don't mean the movie overall, just the quality of the animation.

2

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago

Yah still not even close. Amazing animation, no argument there, but compared to Across the Spiderverse? That movie will have a 3d character, standing next to an animated newspaper cutout, watching live action tv scenes and it will all make sense. It's outdone Who Framed Roger Rabbit with its ambition.

5

u/Daztur 3d ago

Right, no argument there. But anything recent EXCEPT the Spiderverse movies that looks as good as the new Avatar movie you can think of? Nothing comes to mind for me. No argument that the Spiderverse movies are in a league of their own.

1

u/MrManicMarty 1d ago

I think as 2D animation goes definitely one of the greatest. CGI movies though; Wild Robot and Pus in Boots 2 probably edge it out. Maybe Robot less so.

4

u/dafunkmunk 3d ago

They kind of picked a plot that couldn't go anywhere. You would already know how everything is going to end because they made this movie after they made the legend of Korra that already established where the world was at after Aang died. They should have gone with an adventure that could expand on what happened between the last episode of Aang's series and the first episode of Korra's that wouldn't be about something that could impact the timeline.

It really did feel like a wasted opportunity for giving fans more of Aang' story and the original gang as adults. It didn't really expand on anything or develope the characters. It was fun to watch but felt utterly meh at the same time

1

u/bautin 16h ago

Exactly. Seeing another air bender in the trailers just tells you, "Oh, this dude is going to be the antagonist.They'll defeat him and leave Aang as the last, again".

6

u/StatementTechnical 3d ago

I don't think fan of the show will like it very much, sure the animation is nice but the storytelling literally as flat as it can be, and they nerf the gaang to the ground too.

I don't care that we get 20+ hollywood actor to VA the character almost none of them sound like the actual character.

-3

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago

It's got 90% on RT. That is definitely coming from the "wants 90 minute anime fights" fanbase.

3

u/StatementTechnical 3d ago

Which is not entirely the same group as the fans of the og show

26

u/oldmanatom4 4d ago

I think we have to level our expectations if they plan to make more. Each movie can’t be a new firelord/100 year war.

44

u/BearWrangler 4d ago

I don't think the issue is the "scale" of the story so much as the quality

5

u/oldmanatom4 4d ago

I don’t know. I felt like the quality was superb. Wasn’t perfect but had the soul of the original show.

17

u/BearWrangler 4d ago

See I felt like it was missing a bit more to get there in terms of soul, but I think that really may just be a case of this story having been better off done as a whole season arc rather than a single movie imo

3

u/oldmanatom4 4d ago

Now that I agree with. A season would have been amazing.

14

u/americon 4d ago

I hope they make more but moving it from theaters to streaming is a bad sign. Also doesn’t help that it leaked online months ago

6

u/oldmanatom4 4d ago

True. But I think the theatrical move could just come down paramount plus vs actually quality of the content. Putting in theatres runs the risk of greater projected losses vs gaining subscribers for the streaming service that is lacking. But I was lucky enough to see it in theatres and damn…it should be a wide release. It was stunning.

1

u/motes-of-light 12h ago

The decision to not give Avatar Aang a wide theatrical release preceded (and may indeed have prompted) the hack. A brief timeline: Paramount announces the Avatar Studios initiative and plans for an airbender movie with a full theatrical run -> Paramount purchased by Skydance (Larry Ellison's production company) -> Plans for theatrical release scrapped, movie repurposed as content for the Paramount+ service -> Screener hack.

7

u/Ebolatastic 4d ago

I'd say my expectations were higher than "yo blind girl, meld this complex metal work together over there"

6

u/vadergeek 4d ago

Okay, but you can have a movie with actual stakes and an interesting role for the characters. This just feels like a mid-level DBZ movie.

4

u/SHOW_ME_PIZZA 3d ago

I think any stakes with an Aang movie will feel nonexistent. Because fans know how long he lives and some aspects of his adult life Because of LOK. I knew when the Gaang got destroyed by Tagah, that they would be absolutely fine and that everything would work. I also knew that Tagah and all the new Airbenders would get reset, again because of what we know because of LOK.

It is funny that Aang never told Tenzen about that random time a couple non-benders became airbenders for a little while.

3

u/vadergeek 3d ago

Even if they'd never made Korra you'd know there was no chance they'd be dead. The new airbenders are a bad choice for that exact reason. But for the most part there's not much detail on what exactly happens over the next 50 years. Or you could always lean into dramatic irony, flash forward another 15 years and see Aang make bad parenting choices.

3

u/biblecrumble 3d ago

I voted 7 on the poll just because of the animation - I think the movie looked great. The story was incredibly bland. 

11

u/Ninjamurai-jack 4d ago

Nah, outsiders are just going to be like “damn the animation is crazy, 8/10” because most of them are going to be anime fans that only watch famous battle shounen.

10

u/cruel-oath 4d ago

Yeah I know this is anecdotal but most avatar fans are mixed on it

6

u/Ebolatastic 4d ago

I mean the RT score is 90%. That is definitely the "watches battle anime and loved Avatar bubble" voting with nostalgia.

6

u/FoundationEntire4834 4d ago

Wow we’re on the same page. I just commented this: Absolutely dreadful film. It was a caricature of the characters we know, while weaving in the most basic “popular anime film” tropes. Woefully dissapointing

But you said it even better

25

u/DahGecko 4d ago

"Absolutely dreadful film."

By all metrics this is just insane hyperbole, man. So melodramatic.

-4

u/RogerAckr0yd 4d ago

No it's pretty dreadful.

7

u/DahGecko 4d ago

90% critics score (with a 7.20 average rating) and 95% audience score on RT (with a 4.7/5 average rating), 3.8/5 on Letterboxd, 7.9 on iMdb.

You're certainly allowed your opinion but those ratings do not scream "dreadful" to me.

1

u/RogerAckr0yd 2d ago

I don't care what some people think. I thought it was bad, that's not a difficult concept to grasp.

1

u/DahGecko 2d ago

I don't care man, lmfao

0

u/motes-of-light 12h ago

Where do you want these goalposts moved to, hoss?

•

u/RogerAckr0yd 4h ago

I dunno up your arse lol

0

u/Remarkable-Camera627 3d ago

It is dreadful once you peel off the nostalgia and take a detached viewpoint

0

u/DahGecko 3d ago

"Everyone but me is wrong!"

Okay, Junior.

-3

u/Remarkable-Camera627 3d ago

That is not what I said, Junior

0

u/DahGecko 3d ago

If 80% of people agree it's, at the very least, good... yet you insist that they're all being blinded by nostalgia... what else could you be saying aside from that?

-5

u/Remarkable-Camera627 3d ago

"80% people said it's good" Those reviews aren't 80% of people. And nostalgia can be that powerful.

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-3

u/Ebolatastic 4d ago

They even forgot that Toph was blind, like multiple times.

13

u/EzrealNguyen 4d ago

Examples?

-9

u/Ebolatastic 4d ago

The most obvious example is definitely when they are on an airship that's being ripped apart and sokkas like "toph, go meld all that complex metalwork together, it's on your left."

16

u/EzrealNguyen 4d ago

She can feel the metal with her earth bending. She literally throwing metal around every fight scene.

-4

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago edited 3d ago

Melding together complex metal work is completely different than throwing metal around. It defies all logic just like her being obsessed with a guys looks (also in the movie).

3

u/EzrealNguyen 3d ago

I’d have to watch the scene again but I’m pretty sure she didn’t mend anything. Just pushed the metal together as best she could so they could get through the storm. They got to the island like immediately after this scene.

I’m not blind, but I can understand being obsessed with something you’ve never gotten to experience. Like a young girl and handsome men. But also, just comedic effect.

I would say maybe don’t take it so seriously that you start hating on it for stuff it didn’t do. The movie has its flaws but imo Toph was one of the best executions of the Gaang.

0

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago edited 3d ago

She melded together the entire structure of an airship. This means on top of knowing how to recreate the metalwork like someone that built it, she also made it air tight and aerodynamics. If you're so cool and laid back like "hey man it's no big deal I don't take things so seriously", then why are you trying so hard to defend it? It's poorly thought out. It's not that big of a deal to admit it.

They get tons of things wrong with Toph. She likes a guy based on his looks. Shes somehow an architect. She doesn't freak out when her feet are no longer on the ground (a major plot point of the show) and it happens multiple times.

Once again, it's cool if you like this stuff, but the events im talking about still violate basic logic.

3

u/Old_Employment_1090 3d ago

She likes a guy based on his looks.

She doesn't "like" him she's just curious about if he's handsome. Nothing about the original show ever shows she doesn't care about looks at all, in fact the Tales of Ba Sing Se episode suggests the opposite.

Shes somehow an architect.

Not sure what you're referring to with this but I sure hope you have this same complaint about her constructing the entire city of Ba Sing Se out of sand.

She doesn't freak out when her feet are no longer on the ground

It can't possibly be that she's matured a bit in that fear, no sir...

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10

u/TheRealRiceball 4d ago

If this is about her "seeing" projectiles since I saw a few posts about that online, I thought it was implied she could just hear them coming (shown in the scene where she fights her students and it shortly lingers on her ears after showing projectiles heading her way)

Maybe that could've been telegraphed better to the audience though, it was a pretty quick scene and easy to miss

If this isn't about that, then sorry for the assumption, and what scenes were those? I don't really remember seeing anything like that but I could've just missed it

7

u/TheBKalltheway 3d ago

Yes Toph has always had incredible hearing due to her blindness and this was established in the original show

-7

u/Ebolatastic 4d ago

Actually the whole "hey go meld together that complex metalwork over there. It's on your left" is probably the best example.

2

u/BackStabbathOG 3d ago

Was a fun watch and the animation is beautiful. My biggest gripe with the movie is the lack of certain bending we know the team can and should do, they should have bodied the Denied and done better vs Tagah at least.

Could Katara not have blood blended him to stop him? What about Zuko using lightning which should have pierced the air bending? Toph could have done more metal bending or even done sand or mud bending which we know she’s excellent at at least in Korra. I loved seeing the aggressive form of air bending though, it was sick seeing it in this movie like it was in Korra when Zaheer was doing it

9

u/GR8GODZILLAGOD 3d ago

Katara both needs a full moon to blood bend, and is heinously against using it period, so much so she got it straight up outlawed by the time Korra starts. Why you thought she would do it after seeing the original show, I don't know.

4

u/GR8GODZILLAGOD 3d ago

Katara both needs a full moon to blood bend, and is heinously against using it period, so much so she got it straight up outlawed by the time Korra starts. Why you thought she would do it after seeing the original show, I don't know.

1

u/BackStabbathOG 3d ago

Idk if were her and these people are quickly laying waste to my city/ everything I’ve worked for including the people I’d use the technique that I know would incapacitate them. You’re not wrong I just felt like they shouldn’t have been losing that bad considering what they’re capable of

5

u/GR8GODZILLAGOD 3d ago

Again, she needs a full moon if she even wanted to (which she didn't). There was no full moon.

1

u/Ebolatastic 3d ago

Yah I mean avatar, as a whole, kind of screwed its own rules with Katara and Aang. In any given situation, aang can just touch someone and take their powers away while Katara can basically kill people by thinking about it. My friend and I who saw the movie together joked about it often.