Admittedly, I love the series, but like all films, whether from books, comics, or tv they don't quite make it as you would expect or hope.
My issues with the film are many:
1. Terrible acting. I'm not sure if it was the choice of actors or the inability of the director to give them good direction. There's a point when Aang, Sokka, and Katara end up in a prison camp with earthbenders. Aang tries to get the people motivated to rebel. The guards are just standing there while the people begin to fight, like they were waiting for an invitation. Everyone is slow to react. It's just pitiful. And that's only one example of many bad acting/direction issues I had.
2. Forced relationship dynamics. Though this was a rehash of all of season 1, they push you immediately into trying believe that there is a much stronger bond between characters than they actually develop in the film. If you've seen the series then you already know who means what to each other, but here they try to get you to believe a deep bond exists between characters that have just met. I wish they'd allowed things to develop/unfold more naturally.
3. Poor martial arts. For gosh sakes couldn't they have found kids that actually had a grasp of martial arts? It hurt me to watch them do all these stiff, choppy movements on screen. It totally wasn't a secret that there'd be martial arts in this film! You'd think they'd have spent some time with a good choreographer to teach these kids. Maybe it just wasn't in the budget?
4. Not so special effects. So where exactly did the budget get spent? The special effects were atrocious! There was one scene where Aang was in the village of the Northern Water Tribe, he's doing jumps and kicks across the screen. He's not in "Avatar state", he's still himself. It looks as though he's been imprinted upon the movie in the background, but no one bothered to change the lighting to help blend him back into the scene. It stuck out like a sore thumb and it didn't make any sense to me at all. There were a few other times where I though, "WTF?!?" but fortunately I wasn't as annoyed by this through the whole movie as I was the first three issues.
5. Color. Why were all the bad people brown? I know there was already a big issue made about this. Everyone in the Fire Nation was either Indian or Middle Eastern. While I'm totally glad they're in the film (Hollywood needs to add more color to it's films!), but why were all the "heros" white? The entire Northern tribe was white too! However the Earth tribe that was at the prison was Asian. What the heck was that about?
6. Characters. I felt that Sokka was too serious and a little too old. He wasn't funny at all. Aang was impulsive, but not really playful. I think some of the details that make these characters so endearing were missed.
7. Can you say "franchise"? I guess M. Night Shyamalan assumed that no matter how crappy his version there'd be a second film. There's no ending. I heard after the fact that people knew about it. It's supposed to be a "cliffhanger" type ending, so it's not really an ending, but I didn't think it was much of a cliffhanger anyway. It ends right where season 1 ends.
8. The end, finally! I'm the kind that stays through all the credits. I like to read to see who did what. I have friends that work in various aspects of the industry and I love finding their names in the credits or just reading the unusual names you find. I did not stay for the credits. I just wanted it to end. I felt like it went on and on and I was expecting it to end on more than one occasion, so when it finally did I was ready to get the hell out of the theatre.
Overall the film feels rushed and messy. I feel M. Night Shyamalan doesn't pay enough attention to the whole film and how it comes together, nor to some of the details that could make a film like this shine.
So to sum it all up:
DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!
