I found the visuals to be wholly disappointing. I went to this film to see bending and sadly there is very little to be found. The fighting forms were distorted and really most of the action scenes fell flat. In most cases it was a mas of people you couldn’t distinguish from one another performing some form of martial arts on each other. Not only were the visuals not up to par the score to the movie was absolutely terrible. The cartoon had a beautiful soundtrack that went along with it and is one of them elements that make the cartoon so appealing.

I suppose all of this could have been forgiven if there weren’t fundamental flaws in the story as a whole. Why is there so much focus on the spirit world? Why are we seeing the fire lord as a man concerned with his son through out the entire film? Why is Iroh so obsessed with girls? ( I realize this is in the cartoon but it plays out much better) Where does this seemingly random love story come from at the end of the film to an apparently minor character? (again this part actually made sense in the cartoon) Why are major characters cut out of the story?

I understand the film makes had limitations but it doesn’t appear as if they really tired. This film was a complete mess. It won’t do anything for the fans of the cartoon due to its many major plot holes and its wild interpretation of the story and the plot jumps so much and becomes so confusing that it will turn off the causal movie goer.

Overall it was a complete disaster and I hope that if they make another one (and that’s a big if based on the box office returns) they can actually spend a little time trying to make something people will want to watch and can enjoy.

Oh and the name thing was something M. Night wanted. He felt it was necessary to correct the pronunciation of the names to how they would be said in the cultures they originated from.