The Last Airbender

I watched this reluctantly for the first time recently to see if it was bad as I had heard and I was wrong, it was even worse than I could have imagined. I was unable to even finish the movie. I wish I could rate it lower. I understand that adaptations are difficult to reflect in the same light as the original content but the direction style, casting, writing, acting, and animation of this movie was lazy, disrespectful, and devalued the core ideals of the series. The movie proves painful to watch. I grew up watching the series and still now as an adult I am still constantly in awe of how wonderful of a show it is. So I wholeheartedly recommend to forget you even laid eyes on this movie and go watch the series in all it's glory.

I don't consider myself picky when it comes to movies. I usually find a thing or two that I like about a movie whether it's terrible or not. But this…I mean wow. As an avid fan of the show and someone who could easily sit and watch episodes over and over again, I tried to be fair and give it a chance. Obviously, no live-action film could come close to the magnificence of the cartoon, but there are ways to pull it off and at least do it justice. This movie has hardly any theatrical merit. It could be considered a Twilight of moviedom—minus the fanbase.

Let's start with the characters or, rather, the lack there-of. One of the things that made the cartoon so great was the incredibly complex and well thought-out characterization. Every single character had dimension and depth. As for the movie, not one of the characters even had a personality. They were cardboard cutouts of their animated selves with no drive or purpose. Katara, Sokka, and Aang had no chemistry and were hardly even together during the length of the film. There's absolutely no motivation for either Sokka or Katara to assist Aang and, had your average movie-goer never seen the show, they would have been wondering what on earth they were doing in the movie at all. I didn't get a father-and-son relationship between Zuko and Iroh, which is one of the most important relationships in the entire series, one that eventually changes Zuko for the better. I could hardly see Zuko doing anything for Iroh in the film other than order him around. Momo and Appa got virtually no screen time and every time I got a glimpse of Momo's face I kept thinking "Zaboomafoo." I won't complain about the way either were rendered, as I don't think it really mattered considering the fact that they played no role in the story, anyway. Overall I felt the casting was dreadful. Both Katara and Zuko were too young, in my opinion, but Katara's lack of age could have been compensated by portraying a strong-willed character…something that was never accomplished. None of the characters resembled their animated counterparts: Sokka wasn't sarcastically charming, Katara wasn't determined or motherly, and Aang lacked any and all of his lovable boyish-ness. Zhou was annoying, Iroh had no jolly, old-man qualities, and Fire Lord Ozai? There was absolutely nothing threatening about him at all. I didn't so much mind that he was in it in the first place, but couldn't they have at least made him unapproachable? I felt like I could have walked up and punched him in the face without any repercussions.

The story was botched at best and felt like nothing but a string of events pieced together through basic transitions. It's one thing to stray from the original source for the sake of flow and continuity, but nothing about the story made sense unless you had seen the show, and even then, I was left confused and annoyed when things were switched around without any obvious reasoning. I understand that re-writing eight or nine hours' worth of material into a two-hour movie is a challenge for even the most skilled screenwriter, but it's been done before and could have been done here. My biggest disappointment was the fact that Sozin's comet, the most important aspect of the plot and the driving force for the Aang Gang to defeat the Firelord, was only briefly mentioned at the very end. The fact that this movie left out major plot points, key characters like King Bumi and the Kyoshi warriors, and jumbled around the order of various events is inexcusable. The source material was there; all that needed to be done was to use it and mold it properly. Rather than write the script, M. Night should have hired a screenwriter who actually knew what he was doing.

As for the effects, I can't say much. It's not one of the things I focus on in a movie, even for something that was meant to be heavily influenced by martial arts and elemental magic. I will say that the bending was hideous, and not because of the way the special effects were done. In the original cartoon, every movement corresponded with a reaction; in the film, it took five or ten motions for anything to even happen. Because of this, the bending didn't look natural in any way and came across as pitiful and useless. The fact that the fire benders couldn't shoot fire out of their hands made their bending look much less powerful than it should have been. Perhaps the thing that annoyed me the most was Katara's obvious lack of talent at water bending, a fact that gave the story no benefit and looked more like M. Night just never watched the show.

Since I don't like to totally crush something, I will say a few things I found salvageable about the film. For one thing, I thought the scenery and costumes were decent. They had the look of the show but without much character to them. I liked Yue, who looked a great deal like her character, perhaps the most of any of the actors. The way they did Aang's arrow was kind of cool with all of the detailing, but it could have been a little more visible. The only thing I can say I thought was a nice addition was Zuko's mentioning that his father said he was "like his mother." That was the one and only nice touch. More than anything the first twenty minutes of the film gave me a good laugh as it was clear that the entire movie would be a disaster.

Overall I am sincerely glad I didn't bother to pay money to see this movie and strongly encourage anyone else to avoid it. Spend your money elsewhere, such as purchasing or renting the first season of the show.

I remember watching this movie back when it first came out and I didn't think it was that bad. I just finished watching the cartoon series on Netflix and I figured I would re-watch this to wrap it all up. Now I wish I hadn't watched it. It's NOTHING like the show. I wonder if the people who worked on this movie even saw the show. Stay away from this movie. It's so bad that it actually hurts to watch it.

"The Last Airbender", directed by M. Night Shyamalan is tortuously lethargic, uninvited, abysmal, and uniformly atrocious (in every aspect). And that's me being nice! Based on Nickelodeon's beloved animated series (to which I am only vaguely familiar and thus can't compare) is set i a world in which the population is divided amid the four elements (Earth, Wind, Water and Fire) and some skilled practitioners whom can "bend" these elements to their will. Since the elements are naturally at odds with each other, an overall controller is needed to maintain order among the kingdom. This role is played by the Avatar, who can manipulate all the elements and thus can keep balance and peace amongst the tribes. Only problem is this Avatar has gone missing for 100 hundred years. "The Last Airbender" follows a brother and sister from the Water Tribe, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), who discover a 12-year-old monk-child from the Air tribe frozen in a block of ice and his gigantic furry steed (that resembles the luck dragon in "The Never Ending Story").His name is Aang (Noah Ringer), and he, of course is the missing Avatar. Now freed, he finds his home air tribe are all dead and the rest of the world in turmoil. All at the hands of the tyranny of the dreaded Fire Nation. Aang, who never wanted to be the Avatar in the first place (thus why he ran away) must step up, lead a resistance and bring peace back to the Kingdom. However, he must first learn how to control the elements other than air (was imprisoned by an ice storm before he could train). The Fire nation led by Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis) wants none of this of course and seeks to capture and subdue Aang (they would just kill him but he'd just get reincarnated). Rounding out the plot is Ozai's son, Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), living in exile with his uncle Iroh (Shaun Toub), who also wants to capture Aang and bring him back to his father to win his honor back. Sound like a lot? It is, but surprisingly not as convoluted as it sounds. The scope of the plot, which attempts at mysticism, politics, religion and a whole obvious Jesus angle isn't the problem. Its how the story is told that makes it unbearable. It throws a lot at you with no effect. It fails definition and lacks resonance. Everything is rushed. Characters and story elements are given no development. Take the Fire Nation for example. We are told they are scourge of the once unified kingdom but we arn't shown this. They travel the globe in their ominous, menacing, iron ships and have a mightier than though attitude but all in all nothing that establishes their evil-ness; albeit a later incident with a glowing pond guppy. Because of this we have nothing at stake, no reason to root for the good guys to triumph. Another example would be a big part of Aang's journey. Which involves him letting go of his anger towards the genocide of his people (a scene depicting said genocide would have helped sell the fire nation's douchey-ness) but we never see him get angry enough to make "letting go" have meaning. Void-ness of emotional moments are what really plague this film. I would blame this on the script but the performances are what make it not work. Every actor in this film (minus Shaun Toub) delivers dialogue as if they were reading it for the very first time. Not one thing anyone says carries any weight, none of it resonates emotionally. To say the actors suffer from wooden acting would be insult an to wood. It seem Shyamalan seemed much more interested in the visuals than the narrative (or the dialogue, which is shoddy at best). M. Night manages a few striking images, most of them involving otherworldly landscapes and ornate set design. There are strong special effects and action sequences which are fluid and vivid. Particularly with the fights involving element- manipulation. Winds gusts slamming people around like rag dolls, earth barricades, globs or walls of water and so on are eye popping. The effects are top notch. The hand-to-hand, Kung-Fu fight sequences are well choreographed as well, but a bit too extraneous. Should also mention that this movie is available in 3D and lets just say it's a wasted element (pun intended), an unnecessary afterthought. It wrecks whatever visual grace that might have been (and will give you a massive headache). Though, relatively successful in cinematic aspects Shyamalan, overall fails to capture the sense of adventure. There is a signs of a beautiful journey but it ultimately falls flat. Underwhelming and joyless Avatar: The Last Airbender is sure the be the final nail in the coffin of M. Night Shymalans stunted career. M. Night Shyamalan: Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me four times? "The Sixth Sense" was clearly a fluke.

The Last Airbender (2010)

1/2 (out of 4)

After being freed from an iceberg, Aang (Noah Ringer), a long lost Avatar who is the only one able to bend the four elements, finds himself doing battle against the Fire Nation who who attempting to take over all three Nations (Air, Water, Earth). M. Night Shyamalan's THE LAST AIRBENDER is based on the very popular television show, which is something I've never seen so I pretty much walked into this not knowing what to expect from the story. I'll admit by the ten-minute mark I was pretty much lost in regards to the story and each passing minute I found myself growing even more confused. I then had to do something I never do, which was stop the movie and call someone familiar with the TV series and this film to try and find out what the heck was supposed to be going on. I painfully sat through the rest of the movie and afterwards I started to read other reviews and I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one who couldn't make any sense out of this material. I will say that I think Shyamalan has gotten some pretty bad beatings over his recent films, which I think were unfair but there's no doubt that he deserves the majority of the blame here, although I think a very strong argument could be made that those who hired him should be on fans hit list more than Shyamalan. The biggest fault of his was the screenplay, which simply doesn't make any sense as the story is always jumping from one place to another and none it ever seems connected. From what I've gathered he was jumping around so many parts of the show that unless you're familiar with it you weren't going to know what's going on here. Even worse are the actors who are all extremely bad and come off even worse when they have to say the bad dialogue. I don't like to attack child actors so I won't mention any of them by name but what were the producers thinking when they agreed to cast them? Surely there were more talented people out in Hollywood. The special effects are all poor, the action badly directed and even worse is that there's simply nothing here to care about. Some nice cinematography is about the only thing going for this turkey, which is every bit the misfire its reputation would have you believe.