this is ripped from a post by me over at escapist.
 
 rotten tomato's and all the nay Sayers are actually right here this movie is total and complete trash, I am a big fan of the animated series.. though I disliked the abrupt and somewhat unexplained ending of that series but I still loved it as a whole.

But this movie is complete trash and just barely follows that story with most of the source material as scarlet said eviscerated and left to bake in the sun, changes to scenes that never needed to be made, not including scenes that could have been included, the fact this type of movie should have been 2 hours at least or 2 and a half instead of 1 hour and 43 minutes it would have been better with a 2 hour or 2 and a half hour length they could have added far more scenes from the animated show then they did.

Acting is bad, its bad from nearly every single actor except 2, Dev Patel as Zuko, and Shaun Toub as Iroh, but even their characters were crap they were nothing like the animated series characters but then again no character in this movie matched the animated characters and for no reason at all, the acting was bad but the characters were written different then they were in the animated series. Ong (or ongalongabeen bang, instead of Aang) is not a happy carefree character like he was in the animated series with a load of responsibility on his shoulders and him growing up, Katara is not happy just sad and emo, the same with Sokka who is just a useless character here but had at least some value in the animated series, Zuko isn't an angry angst filled teenager betrayed by his father or any thing, and Iroh is not the happy, peace loving wise cracking tea loving old man hes just there...with a little anger and no cares for whats happening around him. Fire lord Ozai is just...angry face...I'm the fire lord...angry face instead of being a sadistic psycho...The animated series...made for CHILDREN has more emotional range then this movie with each characters having their laughs, and loves, and angers and hates...and violence...something unseen in this movie.

Effects are complete and total crap, along with the choreography...going to this movie is much like going to see Sorcerers Apprentice and each person casts a single spell the entire movie, you don't make a movie where the concept is there are people capable of controlling the elements then do so few scenes with this actually occurring, and the martial arts *choreography* are complete and utter crap with most of the characters doing very little in these departments and the stuff they do do being total crap...Dev Patel and a few background characters and extras being the only ones note worthy in this area. In the animated series it was a short set of movements that produced elemental bending...in this a whole dance routine before even a single thing happens often without any force it should have had...the moves often look exactly the same, yet the animated series each nations bending was based on unique and different martial arts. What was up with the fuzz? whats up with the close ups? I noticed this whether it was my theater *not a chance my theater has never failed me* that the entire movie had a fuzz to it...and often scenes that needed no close up had them...there was an entire scene of Katara Sokkka and Ong are talking and it switches from an extreme close up of Sokka and Katara to an extreme close up of Ong...back and forth...in a scene where they could have just between standing together face to face talking...without the individual extreme close ups.

Mispronouncing simple names with all ready set pronunciations...the largest offense here is Ong instead of Aang there was literally no logical reason for him to be called ong instead of Aang Aang works, Its how you pronounce that, it was set forth in the animated series? why change it...there are other problems but I'll get to another problem now.

Racial Ambiguity...the animated series had it, except for a few characters it was not obivious what race the characters were...so what do they do? they make the entire southern water tribe except 3 people Inuit (eskimos) the entire north tribe is whites, the entire fire nation is indians, and the entire earth kingdom is a mix of Asians.
the animates Series was racial Ambiguous. they were clearly able to get the races hired they could have hired more races then they did as actors and just mixed them up, with different races comprising up the different nations so as to convey the Racial Ambiguity...but they didn't and that made the movie suck even more.

This movie sucks, it killed the inner child in me that liked Avatar the last airbender.
 
P.S: One of the major problems with Martial arts is Noah Ringer, Noah Ringer is an unknown this is his First movie, he was plucked up at a casting call For airbender, In real life he has been practicing Taekowndo for years he holds a first degree black belt in it in real life. yet all of his actions and martial arts in the movie are stilted and jerky with obvious hesitation from him on what hes doing here and there, you would think someone trained as he is would do better, but as it turns out the person that did do most of the training of the actors a martial arts Choreographer was then ignored during filming he taught them but was not brought in to supervise the scenes they were just left to do what they have been taught without any other direction.