The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender


D- (1.4)

The Last Airbender should be recalled The Last Thing We Would See From M. Night Shyamalan because this is not only a poorly executed adaptation of a TV Series, but also just messed up with a director who just committed career suicide by ruining a once beloved cartoon. Or there should I say one of the worst movies of theis century. Even Armond White didn't like it from the start.

Honestly of all the cartoons I've seen in my current age along with Arthur and Phineas & Ferb, Avatar: The Last Airbender was a cartoon that I absolutely enjoyed. It was a cartoon that has Asian mythology and martial arts suited with Western audiences. But I only watched the first season in which this movie was based on and The Last Airbender had bit the hand.

To tell you the story, it's about two children Katara and Sokka whose powers could use water as their weapon discovered a 12 year old kid in an iceberg near their place. His name is Aang (by the way why the f**k do they call him Aung) played by Noah Ringer, and he is as the title suggest the last living Airbender who can use air as his powers. The Fire Nation led by Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) who had conquered almost everything in the Spirit World, wants the Airbender who is the Avatar, a sorcerer who can master Earth, Water, Air and Fire. Katara and Sokka helps out Aang's quest to master all of these elements so he can defeat the Fire Nation.

Did M Night Shyamalan got paid $72 million to f**k up everything up? On the screen. You know I can tell you that Shyamalan is a huge fan of the show and he wanted to direct this movie because his daughter was a huge fan of the show as well and was intrigued of how big of a fan she is. However anything that was great about the cartoon from Nickeloneon is left out of the movie and I think that Shyamalan wants to put a huge stamp in this movie. And does he ever. Because of that, not only does it appalled me that they destroyed the whole reputation of the cartoon, but the creators of the show still approve of this. The direction of the movie was truly lazy. I was going to give a pass to Shyamalan cos I haven't seen any of his movies The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable or The Happening which were critically panned.

The acting is just utterly terrible. Noah Ringer who plays Aang is awful as he had shown no emotion to his character. So are the people who played Katara and Sokka. They never show any sort of emotion at all. The worst of them all is Aasif Mandvi who plays Admiral Zhao who just irritates me because he doesn't show any personality of Zhao. The only performance that almost matches its character is Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire who plays Prince Zuko. He portrays the same person Zuko was in the cartoon but he's given no dialogue and I can't even help seeing him glare at the camera. However the only great performance I could hand compliments to was Cliff Curtis as Uncle Iroh (his part would've been played by Ben Kingsley) who has most of the movie's humor but couldn't deliver it well.

The cast would've been better if the script written by Shyamalan was improved but the question is why this kind of cast is put in to this movie when most of the characters that originates from the cartoon are almost Asian (Water Tribe was a mixture of Asian and Inuit, the rest of the elements are all of the Asian race especailly Fire which is specifically Chinese) while the rest of the characters are White or Indian. The Water Tribe are all Whites while the rest of the Fire Nation is Indian. That just offends me.

One of the great things about Avatar: The Last Airbender is the level of comic relief. Aang, Sokka and a dude named Uncle Iroh delivers a sense of charm into the humor of the cartoon. Where as this, that is gone. The reason why Aang sucked is because he's joyless. The reason why Uncle Iroh sucked is because he feels bored. THe reason why Sokka is terrible is because he has no sense of humour.

I believe that this movie went along with the script too much. This is based on the first season of the show and the script felt so rushed that there were many holes based on plot and logic all crammed into 99 minutes of film.

The visuals are not as eye popping as it is. The 3D just reflects how everything sucks and in the first seventy seconds they get to throw everything at you and because of the effects I just felt bored.

And can you believe it. The ending is a set up for episode two. I can't imagine what despicable ways M Night Shylamalan would be putting in that sequel. Shyamalan had counter argued that no one appreciated his style and art he has put into his movie. Well to Mr. Shyamalan. The art that you put in this movie is nowhere between Picasso or Monet. This is might have been below Dali under surrealism. No. It isn't.

It's not that your movies are bad, but if people can watch their movies for the following reasons they wanted to watch it, then they should forget about you for a year or two.

If you want a movie completely opposite of this movie, see Inception. But if you want to watch a movie with amazing flashy special effects with choreography, see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Because if you people are still liking this movie, I don't know what kind of taste do you have in movies.