Esta película, también conocida como Avatar The Last Airbender, pero cambiada de título para evitar errores con Avatar de James Cameron, ha sido la ultima obra del director M. Night Shyamalan. Está basada en la serie de dibujos del mismo nombre del canal Nickelodeon (Avatar la leyenda de Aang en España), aunque en este caso mejor seria hablar de darse un aire.
In the series we are presented with a world divided into 4 great nations, water, earth, fire and air, each of them having members with powers capable of dominating the element of their nation, although as an element of union between them, there is a single individual called avatar, who can control the 4 elements. This approach is ruined when the last avatar (Aang, belonging to the Air Nation) disappears while the Fire Nation begins a war against all the others. 100 years have passed and the fire nation dominates most of the world except for several cities and villages that resist, and still no one knows where the avatar is.
The cartoon series is totally recommended, since it is one of the best series I have seen lately. With great characters (all of them with a different and endearing personality), with a very successful comedy and with very interesting action scenes (especially in the third book). But will the film suffer the same fate? The film is about the first of the 3 parts of the series: “The Book of Water” which we could consider as a first season. The director manages to narrate the 20 chapters of the season in 103 minutes, by not giving any type of personal story to any of the characters apart from Aang, skipping even important scenes of the series and then moving on to others that are difficult to understand without having seen the series.
Another problem is seeing how scenes that do not appear in the series are added that make no sense whatsoever. For example, General Zhao will talk to Fire Lord Ozai every now and then to inform him of the latest news. Considering how far the Fire Nation is from the rest of the places where Zhao is, it is not clear why these scenes were added other than to include the character of Mr. Ozai. Speaking of the latter, there is a rather funny error when Zuko looks at the photo of his father and he appears with a goatee (as in the series), and then the character appears uncharacterized. Here you have the proof: 
As a positive point, it must be recognized that the special effects of the element mastery are very good, and the two animals included (the lemur and the flying bison) are quite impressive for being made by computer. Although on some occasions the backgrounds of some scenes sing a lot, giving the impression of being added on green screen. The types of domains of the different elements are very well done, the movements of each one corresponding to a different type of martial art, just like in the series.
I will end by talking about how Shyamalan has characterized each character. To begin with, the film created a great controversy as there was a great casting of Indian and Persian actors for the roles of villains. In my opinion, I defend the director’s position of trying to place actors of a similar race in each nation to try to give it more cohesion. This occurs with Persians/Arabs/Indians for roles in the fire nation, white actors for the water nation, and Asian actors for the earth nation, those from the air nation being nomadic, better allow for a variety of races.
The problem comes from seeing that the actors do not look like their counterpart in the series, nor do they try to characterize themselves with accessories or hairstyles which are very far from the original.
Here I show you some cases:
Aang es el avatar, el protagonista de la serie, la verdad es que en cuanto a parecido no me puedo quejar ya que se parece bastante, lo único sería quejarse del tatuaje que tiene un estilo tribal pero es cuestión de gustos. Otra cosa es su personalidad que dista del auténtico Aang una barbaridad, ya que el de la serie es un niño juguetón y muy alegre. El de la película tiene la gracia de un muerto, y se pasa toda la cinta con cara de estreñido.
Katara es quien descubre a Aang y una de las protagonistas de la historia. Es de las pocas que tiene una escena cómica en la película y su carácter está bastante bien, solo podemos quejarnos de que en la serie va peinada distinta, y que en la película es bastante más blanca de piel que la Katara de la serie, es decir, cosas que con un peluquero y una sesión de rayos UVA se arreglan.
Sokka es el personaje cómico principal de la serie, y en la película se queda como el personaje soso principal de la peli. Se ve que a su actor “Jackson Rathbone” se quedó con la tensión de su personaje crepusculero Jasper. Eso sí, todo un puntazo que a éste lo peinaran bien.
Zuko es uno de los villanos de la primera temporada de la serie. No entiendo por qué era imposible raparle la cabeza como a Sokka y la quemadura del ojo, la verdad, es que ni se nota en la película en comparación con la serie, en la cual es lo primero en lo que te fijas.
El general Iroh es el hermano del Señor del Fuego Ozai y aunque se parezca en rasgos generales, no creo que les costara nada hacerle un moño. Además, le falta como personaje toda la gracia de éste en la serie. Lo único que podemos apreciar es su buen corazón y el amor por su sobrino.
Zhao es el otro villano principal de la primera temporada de la serie. Como podréis apreciar el parecido con la realidad es nulo, lo cual parece ridículo ya que los cambios no son más que: una barba, unas entradas y un moño. Eso sí, la maldad la mantiene perfectamente. 
Ozai es el Señor del Fuego (algo parecido a ser rey). Este personaje creo que es un cachondeo ya que tiene varios errores que dan vergüenza. En mi opinión es un error ponerle cara ya que en la serie de dibujos no se sabe como es hasta la tercera temporada. Además, ponerle una personalidad plana y nula no le corresponde en absoluto, se supone que debería ser un personaje imponente.
Result: I can only recommend the film for fans of the series, since otherwise, at least the rest of the people are going to lose the thread in some parts. Even so, I can’t say more than that it is a mediocre film, which doesn’t even get a pass because of its many flaws, especially the lack of development of its multiple characters. I really hope that if a second part is made, another director will direct it, since Shyamalan has not been able to capture the great charm of this series on the big screen. 4.5/10