Avatar: The Last Airbender
“Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is an inoffensive, acceptable live-action reimagining of an animated TV series that seems to justifiably grow more beloved every year.”
Pros
- An efficiently streamlined adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Dallas Liu and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s standout performances
- A number of well-choreographed, well-realized set pieces
Cons
- Numerous odd, frustrating tonal inconsistencies
- Uneven CGI throughout
- Ludicrous adherence to source material’s animated character designs
The odds are stacked firmly against Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. The new series happens to be an adaptation of one of the most beloved animated shows of the past 30 years, and it isn’t even the first live-action take on it that Hollywood has produced. Fourteen years ago, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender was met with derision from critics and fans alike, and time hasn’t been kind to it. The 2010 film’s reputation has only made longtime fans all the more skeptical of the new Netflix adaptation — and their hesitation was only further amplified when Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko parted ways with the project over creative differences in 2020.
On top of all of that, Hollywood doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to live-action adaptations of anime and anime-adjacent properties. When you take that into consideration, along with just how much visual effects work that Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s mythical world of fictional kingdoms and elemental benders demands, it’s easy to see why many have long viewed a live-action, episodic take on the animated series a risky gamble, to say the least. It should come as welcome news then that Netflix‘s ambitious Last Airbender adaptation isn’t a complete failure. It is, in fact, perfectly fine, which may very well be the best that viewers could have possibly hoped for.
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