Wheter or not you believe I have seen a Test Screening, here is my personnal apreciation.
English is not my first language, if there is any sort of mistake, sorry.
To start with, I will make a three parts review, for any other question, you may PM me. I will devide the review sections witch will be : Good, Could had been improve and Bad.
BAD (Let's start with the worse)
The story was going to fast. Althought the screening was about 90 minutes, they told us about 30 other minutes were missing. I hope this will be improve because many part of the show (I'm fan ) are skipped are really really rushed. For exemple : the Kyoshi Island part, we are introduce with Suki, but it's really brief plus it's quite different from the original episode. I won't spoil it PM me for info. So it's fast, I would have had the episodes of the King of Omashu episode and The Deserter IMO...
For Rathbone's fan ( )... don't expect much. As other reviewers said, he's not HORRIBLE... but he's quite bad althought is not that away from the original character... just to serious at some point, to old maybe... avec OVERACTING But he looks good (who cares ?)
Zaho fits the role, but way to much funny... I think they choose the wrong actor as sometime, they should have look further than the apperance (who said Shaun Toub )... He is OK and that's it... But I didn't like him in the show either so maybe it's just me... he's Overacting also (like in the show )
Relations : They are really superficial. The only relation that are quite cool are Iroh-Zuko and Appa?-Aang The OK are Katara-Aang, Katara-Sokka and the WORST is Sokka-Yue. Seem familiar to the show... Keep hope though as the relation in the show seem to be more profound in season 2/3.
COULD HAD BEEN IMPROVE
Some CG seam strange... but still I am 99% sure it wasn't finished.
Music... simply not good... but they'll change it (they said us).
The fact that we don't have any backstory of Zuko or other character is stupid... They told us they were still filming some minor scenes... let's hope they're the one. The storm episode seams to be missing.
The acting of Katara could have been better... Some emotion missing there and here. Suki is also not AWESOME, but still she is only there briefly ... As for Yue... O.K (PM me)
GOOD (Don't loose hope, for hope... IS ALL WE HAVE )
Noah Ringer OMG is he AWESOME. He looks so good in Aang... and he acts quite qith awesomeness for his young age, he's also exceptionnal in his bending-fighting scenes as well as the Bald Lady who makes some stunt .
Dev patel... I love him If people say he's overacting, let's just say he's like in the show : HE MUST FIND THE AVATAR and he's I mean it's hard to explain, he's just ZUKOKIND The evolution of this character is different than in the show also (no spoil, PM me).
CG of Momo/Appa is great. Momo is so funny and Appa too, they are a really important part of the movie... except Appa face... looks stupid (i love Appa ). The bending that were actually finished are great
Iroh... I think he'll won something... JUST PLAIN AWE-SOME-NESS (with a little Greatness here and there). Seriously he is the best actor and character of the movie. He's just so interesting and the scene Zuko/Iroh are so great just for that the movie is quite nice
Action scene are just great. The best are the final one and the Blue Spirit/Aang Even with effect not compleated, they are impressive... good casting for that
CONCLUSION
The movie is good and interesting. While the story is not the main thing you'll remember from it, it is quite faithful to the original with some mixt of M. night. Keep hope, some actors are not as good as the rest, but the whole bunch is quite impressive...
If I was a Kid, my note would be 9/10
My actual note is 8/10
If I was a non-fan my note would be 7.5/10
If I was a grinchy critic (or old man) my note would be 6.5/10
Thanks,
Sorry for the mistakes.