My life is boring enough at the best of times, but in the pandemic, pretty much nothing happens to me. This last couple of weeks for instance I have mainly been sitting in front of Netflix. I have binged through all 22+ hours of "Avatar the Last Airbender" and it is quite brilliant!
It should be terrible: It was made for children. It was made by Nickelodeon (Americans) but in the style of Japanese anime, and there's a lot of it.
The only criticisms that I can level at it are that some of it is a bit slow, and that some of the dialog and storytelling is a little bit obvious. However that only bothered me when I was so involved in it that I forgot it was written for twelve year olds. The magical world that it conjurs up is as big, as detailed and as rich as The Lord of the Rings. The story is set at the end of a hundred years war, but there are thousands of years of history just below the surface.
Even though it's for children it deals with very adult topics in a mature way. It deals with war, genocide, loss, corruption, honour, divided loyalties, personal growth and redemption. There's never a drop of blood shown or a swear word spoken, but the impact and gravity of the situations is gripping. In amongst all this there is simple clean humour. "She's got a giant mole" "What are you talking about? Her skin is flawless" "No she rides a giant mole monster".
In the same way that The Lord of the Rings or The Sandman is long enough that radical character development can seem natural and moving, two of the main characters are massively transformed throughout the story in the most compelling ways. What starts out as a one dimensional textbook villain becomes the most entertaining and admirable character in the whole thing.
Richard "find a child and go and watch it" B
My daughter just suggested we watch Avatar tonight and I said no. I will apologize based on your review. And in future, pay more attention to the film critic I am related to!
ReplyDelete