53, The Last Airbender

A Quick Update - where are we on "books turned movies"? Harry Potter is nearly done, Narnia 3 has just started showing trailers, Twilight is almost done and who knows what ever happened the the rest of the golden Compass movies so maybe its time to get into an new set.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a trilogy of books and a 2005 cartoon. The stories follow the resurrection of the last Airbender. A child with the ability to master each of the elements, Air, Fire, Earth & Water. By master I mean move, the skill to manipulate, create and use these elements to his advantage. The other 3 realms can only control their own elements and of those realms only a special few are known as Benders. I know, I still chuckle at the name but as a mature grown up I need to get over that!!

So, that's what its about. As you would have expected I have not read the books, nor even seen the cartoon but its very easy to pick up.

The first movie charts the 2nd coming of the Avatar, a child hidden for 100 years until 2 kids from the water realm discover him. It soon becomes apparent the the Fire Realm are the baddies and our little saviour bolted from training 100 years ago before he had the chance to master the rest of the elements other than Air. Believing he had only been gone for a few days he sets off on a mission to rediscover his true calling and with his 2 water realm chums he learns the Water bending bit whilst starting an uprising among the villages that are fire realm controlled.

Even before they are released I can pretty much guarantee that part 2 will be about mastering the Earth Realm resulting in the final installment focusing on Fire and a battle which leads to the defeat of the bad guys.

So, hopefully that wont spoil it for you.

Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) stars as a the banished prince of the fire realm, hell bent on bringing the Avatar home to his dad to redeem his previous misfortunes and the Avatar himself is played by unknown actor Noah Ringer. We may not see part II until at least 2012 which may be a bit too long to hold interest but don't let that put you off.

The visuals of this movie are great - not so much full on fighting but lots of arm waving and element manipulation takes place instead which results in some pretty good special effects.

This could well be the greatest 3d movie ever made but alas, I cant confirm as I only saw this one in 2d, but even that was pretty cool. If you have seen the 3d version ant its worth a 2nd trip let me know.

It does pad along at a pretty slow pace though, there could easily be more action but this 1st installment is definitely all about the characters and setting the story for the next two films. Hopefully they will get a little more intense but with all trilogy's, parts 2 and 3 alone will not suffice.

Kiddie friendly, it should keep your little ones amused hopefully until the end but if they get a bit twitchy keep the cola on ice!!

See this if...............you fancy a new saga!!