AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER
Getting the Aang of live-action
UK/US Netflix, streaming now
Showrunner Albert Kim
Cast Gordon Cormier, Kiawentiio,
Ian Ousley, Dallas Liu
Made by Nickelodeon in the ’00s, the original Avatar: The Last Airbender was an family TV cartoon with an epic serialised story – plus humour, imagination and great characters. Any remake of a beloved series faces a fanbase out to give it a kicking.
Moreover, Airbender has long been a byword for disastrous live-action adaptations, thanks to the atrocious 2010 film by M Night Shyamalan. Netflix’s series covers the same material, being based on the first season of the cartoon.
Thankfully, their version is massively better than Shyalaman’s. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s increasingly impressive and sometimes terrific. That’s despite some very obvious problems, especially a weak first episode that drops a storytelling clanger.
The cartoon began with a great image. At its world’s frozen South Pole, a young sister and brother, Katara and Sokka, witness a little boy glowing with terrible magic as he emerges from a huge iceberg. Everything else gets explained later. The Netflix show has half an hour of backstory first, losing an attention-grabbing opening.
The boy, Aang, embodies the Avatar, an endlessly reincarnating being. In Aang’s world, elements can be mastered by warriors, Jedi-style, but only the Avatar can use all four. An “Airbender”, Aang can control the air to generate winds and shields, but he must travel to learn his other powers.
Unfortunately, Aang didn’t want to be the Avatar and was running away when he was deep-frozen in a storm. In the intervening century, the hawkish Fire Nation wiped out hs people and is poised for world conquest.
Many viewers may give up on the series during the uninvolving first instalment, with its stodgy exposition and humourless characters, not to mention line deliveries crying out for ADR.
But then the show picks up. Part two has an electrifying battle involving a towering warrior goddess who could have stepped from a Hong Kong fantasy. Later there’s a kaiju-sized owl. The youngsters lighten up, get funnier, and start bouncing off each other.
Gordon Cormier’s Aang lacks the anarchy of the cartoon version, but has sweetness and fortitude. Ian Ousley’s beaky-nosed Sokka goes from charmless to delightful as his character matures. Utkarsh Ambudkar is another stand-out as the mad king of a Minas Tirithstyle stone city.
There are more storytelling gaffes along the way, but the finale is wondrous, full of flamethrowing ships and explosive duels, capped by a Godzilla-style monster made of water. So whether this Airbender continues or not, it’s a rewarding watch. Andrew Osmond
A new Airbender graphic novel, The Bounty Hunter And The Tea Brewer, is due for release in May, from Dark Horse.