This review may contain spoilers.
I thought this was phenomenal, but I have a few notes about how this came to us and the format... You know, especially since nobody was going to let us see this thing properly in a theater... I watched this in the big theater room at a friend's complex with about fifteen other people. We had fun with it, and at least we gave it something approaching the presentation it deserved. I still don't understand the decision. Paramount spends this kind of money bringing Avatar back and then makes it a Paramount+ release. There was a theatrical run, technically. One week, three showtimes a day, in Los Angeles and New York, basically so it qualifies for awards. I'm in Atlanta. So that did nothing for me. If this had been playing anywhere in this metro that I knew about, I would have gone. If they put it in theaters tomorrow, I'll still go. The movie picks up in that gap between Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, with Aang and the rest of Team Avatar as adults roughly a decade after the war. Aang learns about an Airbender who has been lost to time, and that discovery opens into a larger story about an ancient power that could keep Air Nomad culture from disappearing entirely. That works particularly well because we already know where history goes. We've seen Korra. We know Airbending comes back. What we don't know is what Aang and the people around him tried to do in those years to make it possible, or how the people who eventually help the Airbenders came to be. This fills in some of those blanks. I really liked the story. I liked what they did with the characters. I liked being in this world again. Eric Nam is the adult Aang, with Jessica Matten as Katara, Roman Zaragoza as Sokka, Dionne Quan as Toph, Steven Yeun as Zuko, and Dave Bautista as Tagah. The animation is good. Everybody still feels like themselves. I don't have any real negative thoughts about the movie itself. My complaint is that I wanted more movie. Why isn't this thing two hours? We've been waiting years, decades really, to spend time with these characters again. People grew up with Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Zuko. You finally give them back to us as adults and then you're looking at your watch trying to get us out of there before the hour and forty mark. Take your time. This isn't even primarily a theatrical release where you can argue you're worried about showings per day or a five-year-old getting restless. You put it on streaming. I'm already sitting on my couch. Make it two and a half hours. Make it three. Make it a six-hour epic. I'll watch it. Hell, make another series. The thing studios sometimes miss about characters this beloved is that we don't need them doing something important every minute. I don't need Aang saving the world every time I see him. I want Sokka. I want Katara. I want Toph and Zuko. I want to watch these people be adults around each other after everything we watched them survive as kids. Let them wander their world. Let them hang out. Let them talk. That's enough. I had the same problem with Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Sometimes the chemistry between characters becomes one of the things you love about the franchise itself. Once that's true, separating everybody or constantly pushing them through plot is less interesting than just letting us spend time with them. The story they gave us is good. The animation is good. Everything they actually gave me worked. They just didn't give me enough of it. That's literally my complaint: I wanted to keep watching. If you love Avatar, you're going to love this. I thought it was fantastic. I wish it had gotten a real theatrical release, and I wish it had been considerably longer. Next time, stop rushing me out of the room.