Even people who like the cartoon say this is a mess, with character's names constantly being pronounced wrong, really bad 3D camerawork, and poor acting.
Technically, the original show got it wrong first. In fact, before I became a fan of the series, one of the reasons why I thought it was dumb was because they didn't say "Ahng" or "Sohka." They're Asian/Asian sounding names, so the American pronunciation annoyed me. However, I got over that once I saw how good the show was. Plus, people where I'm from pronounce my name incorrectly all the time; even I used to say my own name wrong until I started college and went out of state where people don't have the same accent as a lot of the people around here. I also get that the creators had to make the names easy for American kids/people in general to say, so that meant mispronouncing them in the first place.
Going back to the movie, though, part of me wants to see it today/this weekend despite all the bad reviews just so that I can form my own opinion of it. Part of me wants to wait so I don't have to spent a lot of money on something that might be/probably is bad. Then the first part is like "Well, haters gonna hate! And remember the time you saw Avatar, which everyone and their mother was praising, and you didn't like it?" Then the second part is like "Yeah, I didn't like that movie 'cause I thought the story was dumb and apparently story and dialogue are the big problems in this movie too."
So I'm pretty divided, XD. I've been keeping up with the movie's production since last summer, so I think I've known about a lot of the things that disappointed fans for a long time. Maybe if I go into it with extremely low expectations, it won't be half bad, XD.
I've found two glowing reviews of the movie so far. Two out of the zillion bad ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYOuhX3klIThis isn't a critic's review, obviously, but it's still someone who enjoyed the movie a lot.
Then there's this one.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/49854782-81/airbender-epic-fire-shyamalan.html.cspThen there are a couple more that are like "Well, it's not as bad as everyone's saying it is."
So it might end up being one of those movies that mostly everybody hates, but there are a few people who inexplicably like it. It's kind of like how I inexplicably like Lady Gaga.