Blimey, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a load of tripe. And I really didn’t want it to be. There’s nothing I like more than trawling the networks for exciting new cultural phenomena from the burgeoning, weird oriental TV market – such as Squid Game and One Piece – and bringing it to your attention. Perhaps it fails because, while based on a hugely popular echt Japanese anime series, this is made by Americans. Whatever the case this much-heralded fantasy offering (no relation of the James Cameron Dances With Smurfs movies) is a turkey.
The premise is enticing. It’s set in a world divided into competing tribes – Earth, Air, Fire and Water – who co-habited in strained harmony till the aggressive Fire Nation got out of hand, wiped out most of their rivals and took control. But the goodie they failed to kill was a boy, Avatar Aang, who, after being frozen in ice for a century, has fortuitously defrosted and must now use his multitudinous element-bending skills to restore peace to the troubled land.
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