A Welcome and Heartfelt Return

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender had a lot to live up to and even more hurdles to overcome. A follow-up to the original series, which premiered in 2005 and was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the show has amassed an incredible following.

From fans who watched when it was still airing episodically on Nickelodeon, to those who discovered it through their love of The Legend of Korra, and all of the swaths of fans who fell in love with it through its streaming on Netflix, and those who needed a good binge during COVID, the series has long deserved a sequel in a way so few popular IPs actually do.

We wanted to see more of Team Avatar. Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender increases that desire. While the film itself struggles to make the jump to more mature storytelling while maintaining the childlike wonder (and humor) of the original, the world is so immediately immersive that those struggles are palatable. It’s easy to see the stitching in the writing that tries to combine all of the ideas and worldbuilding so profoundly impactful, and how the film so easily could’ve been split into two stories or, rather, a whole season of television.

But between the gorgeous score, dynamic direction that maintains the tactility and feel of the world, and the bending that anchors it, art design that both finds inspiration from the past while establishing a new tone, and the lovable characters at the heart of it, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is largely a triumph. 

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender embarks on a personal journey. 

Set 13 years following the events of Sozin’s Comet, where a then 12-year-old Aang and his friends saved the world, defeating Fire Lord Ozai and ending the Hundred Year War, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender picks up in an era of peace—operating out of a city where Earth, Fire, and Water benders live together in the multicultural Republic City. This peace is hard-earned after the death-defying acts of bravery Aang and his friends need to commit to save the day the first time around. 

Considering the enormity of the stakes of the series – literal world-ending stuff – it makes sense then that Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender would find a more personal approach. Sure, there’s still a laser beam from the sky style finale, but the narrative tension is effective because of the strong character work done over the three seasons of the original series. 

Aang (Eric Nam), while visiting the towers once populated by the now-eradicated Air Nomads, discovers a group dubbed The Denied – those who seek to reclaim power they believe benders stole from them. Through his brief, beautifully animated brawl with them, he learns of a powerful staff that leads him to the airbender Tagah (Dave Bautista), who, similarly to Aang, has been frozen in ice for centuries. 

Aang’s naivety and trust in others remain his strength and greatest weakness. 

Through Tagah, Aang learns that the staff has the power to restore his culture by granting non-benders the ability to Airbend. Considering Aang’s long-running guilt at running away from his people, awakening only to find out they’d all been killed by the Fire Nation, it’s hardly surprising that he’d take the chance, even if the result is him making some increasingly impulsive and naive decisions. Naivety, however, has always been his greatest weakness, and that goes hand-in-hand with his easy readiness to trust in others. 

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender follows Aang, Katara (Jessica Matten), Sokka (Román Zaragoza), Toph (Dionne Quan), and Zuko (Steven Yeun) as they traverse the globe in a quest to find the artifact before The Denied can get their hands on it. All the while, Tagah offers greater insight into airbending, opening up Aang’s eyes to the greater heights he’s capable of with a sense of community to buoy him further, even as it becomes clear that Tagah isn’t all he appears, not quite as altruistic as he says. 

Directed by Lauren Montgomery and written by Tim Hedrick and Christopher Yost, with story credits from DiMartino and Konietzko, the film is a natural evolution of the series, 20 years in the making. This is what fans should gravitate toward, not the oversaturated Netflix live-action that indulges in the toxic belief that whimsy is childish and therefore bad.

Director Lauren Montgomery brings these characters and the world back to life with an infectious thrill.

The wonder of the original animated series was how it blended high-concept ideas and life-or-death stakes with easy gags and adolescent humor. That, plus the very real emotional journeys the characters undergo in search of atonement or revenge, running away from guilt, trauma, and parental abuse. The moments of severity hit harder and are more memorable because of how the story operates in those two planes of existence. 

Hedrick and Yost find a similar balance, mainly in the dynamic of Team Avatar. The characters are believably close, a found family who trades in easy banter and a lived-in sense of comfort and familiarity. The moments they’re all on screen together are when the film finds its spark.

While the story of Aang having to battle inner, scabbed-over wounds over the loss of his entire culture and the isolation and survivor’s guilt that continue to plague him are interesting centerpieces to build the story off of, it’s seeing the group together again that elicits the childlike thrill.

The characters and the found-family dynamic remains a major highpoint. 

Their appeal and charm remain, and it’s fun to see the core of their characters that still exists – Aang’s spirited energy, Zuko’s aloofness, Toph’s pride, Sokka’s silliness, and Katara’s grounded demeanor – expanded on, matured, and refined. They’re the characters we know and love without remaining static. 

While the entire cast is new, most of them channel the original performances while adding their own nuance. Zaragoza, in particular, is phenomenal as Sokka. So good that it’s easy at first to assume it’s the same actor and, next, to wonder whether he, too, grew up on the show. 

The return of composer Jeremy Zuckerman is another key feature that adds to the grounding of this world, which so often takes flight. His compositions are (pardon) instrumental to the epic-scale atmosphere that the series and now film produce.

The worldbuilding remains immense, and the artistry astounds in elevating it. 

By melding different styles of music and influences, it conjures the feeling of living in a world so overtaken by spiritual influence and endless wonders. That youthful exuberance in the belief that anything is possible with friends by your side and endless skies ahead. 

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender also delivers on impactful action sequences. There’s a welcome physicality to the character’s movement, be it mid-fight or airborne free-falls. And, in a fun bout of action, we see how the group has developed their skills since we last saw them. It’s not just that Aang can now better utilize his Avatar state. It’s that Toph uses her skills to help Sokka in battle, creating platforms for him to run over. It is, in its purest form, fun. 

There are issues with the script’s pacing, and there’s a sense that the film either needed to be split into two or expanded to fit all the many ideas that pop up. Not to mention characters voiced by actors who must have a soft spot for the series in brief cameos. But the overall experience is so immensely delightful, the worldbuilding remains immense, and the background art and fluidity of movement are so defined that it’s hard to stay frustrated.

Yes, it’s good to see Team Avatar again. Even better that Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is deserving of them.

Considering the battle it took to appear on screen and the numerous hurdles the franchise has overall had to scale to become a lasting series in an ever-shifting zeitgeist, the biggest disappointment remains how few of us will get to see it all come together on the big screen.

The talent behind the scenes is undeniable, and the artistry is immense; each landscape is breathtaking in the breadth of its scope. Yes, the magic exists regardless of where you watch it, but the animation stuns because of its detail and deserves the biggest screen possible. 

The film overcomes some clumsy plotting to become the follow-up film the franchise has long deserved. Propelled forward by intricate artistry and craftsmanship that excels on all fronts, the film serves as a reminder of the strength of this story, punctuated by bouts of swift action and character developments that stay true to who they were while showing who they’ve become. Heartfelt and emotionally explosive, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is a welcome return that will make us yearn for even more time spent in the company of this well-established, expectation-defying world. 

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender premieres on Paramount+ July 25, 2026.