Avatar: The Last Aizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Everything likeable about the cartoon Avatar is lost in this film. It’s like the director read the story but failed to actually watch it. Sokka’s name is pronounced wrong and he has about as much humour as a particularly grumpy corpse, Aang is the most boring child I’ve ever had the displeasure to see (his name is pronounced wierdly too) and Zuko is even more annoying than he is in the cartoon (yes, it’s possible).
Uncle Iroh is…thin and dull, if believable. Oh and they’ve done something to Appa’s face. It’s creepy. In fact, a lot of the animal’s faces are creepy.
Firelord Ozai is acted well but there is little menace to him and that renders the epic quest to defeat him…less than epic. It’s like trying to fight a damp sponge.
The bending is portrayed quite well, on the whole, though the moves which characterise it are done so quickly they remind me of nothing but bad kung-foo movies.
The story is butchered, too. Back story is flashed through, important moments are given mere seconds of screen time and the script is…monumentally awful (Sokka spends most of his lines stating the bleedin’ obvious).
The sense of fun is nowhere to be seen in Avatar and there is nothing to like about the characters. It’s not been given the time it needs to rival the cartoon or even come close to watchable. Kyoshi Island, for instance, has been squashed together with the Earth-Benders ship prison, which is now based in a mine…so it doesn’t work). There’s a particularly bad scene where Aang, Katara and Sukko decide to find teachers (it’s a strange one where the camera is so close to the actor’s faces you feel a bit indecent) and they random add to the list ‘save the world’. Sukko comes out with ‘shall we try it?’ and Aang replies ‘yes, we should.’
No. This is not good dialogue, this is moving the scenes along in the shortest possible time.
What would have been good would be six films, two to each book. Instead, it’s an awful movie with awful characters, script and acting. Safe to say, its doubtful there will be a second one.