It’s been a long time since I reviewed a movie (I think last time was Wicked, part 1) and so it feels appropriate for me to resume with this long-awaited sequel to one of my favourite animated series of all time: Avatar: The Last Airbender. Over the years, I have watched the original series at least four times through (maybe more), and so I can’t quite imagine what it would be like for someone unfamiliar with Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko and Toph to watch this movie, but in case you’re such a reader, the original series was essentially the story of Aang, a young monk discovered frozen in ice by a brother and sister from an Inuit tribe. They learned that Aang was the “Avatar”, a powerful, messianic being with spiritual power and abilities to manipulate the four elements. After he was thawed, Katara and Sokka set off on a quest with Aang to help him master his abilities because he was destined to save the world. Their story is epic, but also fun and heartfelt. This sequel movie takes place 13 years after the conclusion of that series. All the characters are older, and Aang is on his own quest to recover as much as he can of his lost Airbender culture. However, when some thieves attack him and steal a mysterious ancient artifact, it sets Aang off on another journey and he calls on his family of friends to help him again.

For people familiar with the show, there are a ton of callbacks right from the start, which is fun because easter eggs were a part of the original series even from season to season. The gang (aka “gaang”) of friends named above are all back, and while they’ve grown up a bit (more on that below) the same intercharacter dynamics are at play in all the scenes where the five of them are together — even though the voice actors have all changed. Themes from the original series as well as the sequel series, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, are also revisited. Because the Airbender society was eliminated, Aang has always had a strong desire to preserve what remains of his culture, and even the possibility of restoring something of his people is extremely important to him. Another theme (which was a bigger part of the Korra series) is the conflict between benders (i.e. people with elemental powers) and non-benders (i.e. the rest of us normal folk who cannot move water, throw flames, raise boulders, or conjure tornadoes with our minds). The villains who steal the artifact from Aang are the latter types, who want a way to rebalance power between the two groups. While I would have preferred a story that felt newer, maybe with different objectives, tackling newer themes, this was still enjoyable and it was a nice reunion with characters and a world that we haven’t seen in over a decade.

After all this time, it’s not surprising that the quality of animation has improved a lot (especially compared to the original series). The action scenes were fast, fluid and vivid. From fights to flights, and every scene in between, the visuals were amazing (which made it a bit tragic that most of us don’t get to see this movie in theatres, since Paramount opted to go straight to streaming). While I found the animation to be top notch flawless, I did have one tiny quibble about the style. I know that the animation of this series has always clearly followed the style of Japanese anime, but I found that for this movie, the eyes — a big part of anime style — felt a little too large. It bothered me somewhat.

As for the characters, I thought they were really good — especially if you want to be reminded of what you enjoyed in the original series. However, I might also have preferred if they had tried to grow them up given the time that has passed since the original series. It was already stretching belief that a bunch of teens could save the world while the adults (who were kings, queens, generals, spiritual leaders, etc.) were by the wayside. At the start of this movie, these twenty-something youngsters seem to have huge influence over their society, even “building” a new multicultural city. It would have been nice to see more of them as adults and leaders before sending them off on another rollicking quest adventure. Sokka in particular seemed to be as twitchy, jokey and frenetic as he had been at the beginning of the series instead of the more mature and stalwart character he’d grown into by the end.

Quibbles aside, it was such a great feeling to be back in this world with these characters. The plot and story was familiar yet interesting enough. Everything looks and feels exciting and wonderful. Not only did it give me thrills in the moment, it also made me want to rewatch some (if not all) of the original two series, and makes me even more impatient for the new sequel series Avatar: Seven Havens coming out later this year. Just like Aang being released from a a block of ice to kick off this entire story, this franchise and world feels like it’s just been thawed and a whole new set of stories are ready to begin.

4 stars