The avatar, Aang, still needs to learn the other 3 elements to stand a chance against the Fire nation. In the movie, he is trying to learn water bending.
The movie was not as good as the cartoons. The plot was rushed! People who have not seen the cartoons will have a hard time understanding the movie. There are very many important things missing. The trailers were promising, but it will not meet the expectations of the viewers. It was just bad.
The characters also had poor acting. Aang in the cartoons was cheerful and fun, while Aang in the movie was very serious and boring. Almost every character's personality was different in the movie. Only one character was close to how he was supposed to be in the cartoons.
Each element in the cartoons used real-life martial arts in their fighting style. Water benders use Tai Chi, Fire benders use Northern Shaolin, Earth benders use Hung Gar, and Air benders use Ba Gua Zhang. These are one of the things that make "Avatar: The Last Airbender" a very unique cartoon. Sadly, non of these were in the movie! Most of them were doing normal punches and kicks to do bending. Everyone looked the same.
The movie has very significant visual effects for the audience. They used very realistic water for the water benders. It is also nice seeing the fire benders control real fire! The air the air benders bend in the cartoons can be seen to provide effects and to help us understand what really happened. They did a pretty good job at improving the graphics of the air. Sadly, this was not able to make up for the rest of the movie.
