Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Review: A Fun, Action-Packed Continuation of the Original Animated Series

Avatar: The Last Airbender enthusiasts have been waiting for a continuation of the original series for years since creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko exited the live-action adaptation because of creative differences. Although a fan-led campaign to get the film a full theatrical release was unsuccessful, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is finally being released, and it was mostly worth the wait — an epic, spirited continuation of the IP with great action and immersive world-building.

What is Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender about?

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender takes place years after the original series, following Aang, Katara, and Sokka as young adults as they set out on a quest to recover an artifact that could save the culture of the Airbenders from extinction. In an era when it feels like every IP is being milked for every dollar it’s worth, Avatar Aang is a welcome change of pace that actually feels like a worthwhile continuation of its predecessor.

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Review

(L-R): Dionne Quan voices Toph, Jessica Matten voices Katara, Román Zaragoza voices Sokka, Eric Nam voices Aang, Dee Bradley Baker voices Momo, and Steven Yeun voices Sokka in Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Paramount+

Something that the movie does really well is balance its obligation to its existing audience with the fact that it is still children’s media. Fans who watched Avatar: The Last Airbender during its initial run are now adults, so it makes sense that the storytelling would need to be a bit more complex. But this film still has plenty of fast-paced action and light humor to make it feel family-friendly. It’s almost as if it was designed to be a way for adult fans to introduce their own children to the franchise.

The most impressive part of Avatar Aang is its action sequences, which are absolutely epic in scale. (This is hardly surprising, considering that the movie was originally envisioned for a theatrical release before Paramount pulled the plug and decided to drop it on Paramount+.) Many feature expansions struggle to find the right balance between paying homage to the original style and vision and getting more ambitious, but director Lauren Montgomery (who cut her teeth working on DC animated films) toes the line wonderfully. 

The big controversy surrounding Avatar Aang has been the decision to recast many of the roles. (The only voice actor who returns is Dee Bradley Baker, who plays Appa and Momo.) DiMartino and Konietzko said that the reasoning was to have voice actors who more closely align with the characters’ racial identities, which is certainly a noble effort. And with the characters being decades older in the movie than they were in the series, Eric Nam, Jessica Matten, and Román Zaragoza make for a pretty seamless and very good Team Avatar.

Where some of the replacements start to make less is in the supporting cast. For example, why do we need Ken Jeong to replace James Sie as the Cabbage Merchant or Steven Yeun to replace Dante Basco as Zuko? These decisions feel less like they’re trying to course-correct the wrongs committed by the original series and more like a corporate mandate to boost the bottom line — as if the suits didn’t trust that the IP was a big enough draw without stuffing the cast with recognizable names. But then it loses some of the personality that having actual voice actors by trade brought to the table.

Eric Nam voices Aang in Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Paramount+

What makes it even more of a shame they felt the need to do this is the fact that there are so many other big names in new roles in the supporting cast, and they do a great job. Dave Bautista, Ke Huy Quan, Freida Pinto, Taika Waititi, and Ronny Chieng are among some of the welcome new additions to the cast. And Nam, Matten, and Zaragoza are great as the main trio. But something just feels off about Sie and Yeun that makes you question whether the creators are actually as altruistic as they claim to be.

Is Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender worth watching?

Still, with the second season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation having received less-than-stellar reviews, it’s nice to see a return to the world of ATLA that (mostly) feels like it respects the legacy of the IP. Although a few aspects of it feel a touch corporate, hopefully interest is strong enough to justify a rebirth of the franchise.

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender streams on Paramount+ on July 25.

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Review: A Fun, Action-Packed Continuation of the Original Animated Series