The Last Airbender
One hundred years ago the Avatar, keeper of the balance of the world, simply vanished. Now the world is under siege by the Fire Nation, it's only hope in Aang, the last of the Air Benders and successor to the title of Avatar. Will he accept his destiny or will he run away once again?
What I Liked:
Lets get one thing off my chest, this was a terrible movie but I have to choose something positive. The best thing about this film are its graphics. Fire shooting from peoples hands looks like fire, water looks like water (though its freezing properties appear to be greatly altered). It was equally nice to see the world of Avatar brought to life, with some beautiful set pieces that are all to rare throughout this.
What I Didn't Like:
Simply put? Everything else. This film is a travesty, not just for fans of the Avatar series but for movie fans everywhere. Lets start from the bottom of this crapfest and work our way up, the script is a terrible mess. It suffers from what a lot of anime films suffer from and that is trying to stuff a 26 episode season and shoving the same content into a 90 minute film. It is a formula for disaster because there is simply to much content to cram into a film, especially when its script as poorly written and ill conceived as this one is. The plot could be a good one but once again it skips around to much and glosses over important parts like a stone skipping across water. The whole effort, the script and the plot, is just an unfocused mess that is to busy treating its audience like a pack of morons than developing any type of cohesive form of story telling let alone any sort of character development or plot progression. In short you get more depth, more emotion and more struggle from watching a tree grow. Add to this whole mess of awful a horrid cast of actors and Shyamalan's own hands off approach to directing and its only goes further down hill. The actors for Sokka, Katara and Zuko might be serviceable actors under a director who demands actual acting from his but they are minor parts, in comparison to Aang the main character. Aang is vital to the film for he is the heart and the soul, the story is his story, we are supposed to experience the world through his eyes. Unfortunately the actor used for Aang gives perhaps the worst performance in the history of cinema, his delivery lacks emotion, his actions are stiff and rehearsed and it brings down everything with it. Of course a lot of this can be blamed on the director, these scenes are simply unacceptable and should have never have been put into the can. Like wise is Shyamalan's cinematography which is hardly smooth and draws constant attention to itself. I could go on, I have a list, and it is a long one, of technical deficiencies and horrid decisions that simply will not fit in this review. It is pretty clear that Shyamalan should not be allowed near a camera or directors chair again. This film is an affront to fans of fantasy, fans of the original Avatar series and fans of movies in general, is a sad effort on nearly every front.
In Conclusion:
Fantasy films are all about the fantasy, about the world and the story that takes place within it. It is the perfect environment for the old story tellers mantra of “show, don't tell.” For years Hollywood treated this rich imaginative ground as a backwater, until the success of the Lord of Rings, in many ways The Last Air Bender feels like a return to that back water. It is insulting that the narrative is stopped for a hastily edited montage and a poorly written voice over, “And then we traveled to the Water Kingdom...” I bought a movie ticket to see this world, to see this journey and was robed of that treat. Yes the back grounds sometimes looked like poorly composited Photoshop images or terrible plastic props but they were there to show me Avatars world. To many times though we are forced to look at the actors crappy performances when a simple camera truck, back and up, would have conveyed much more emotion and grandeur than the actors seemed capable of. Then there is the absolute idiocy that is the fighting style. Remember the joke from Zoolander “Shhhh...they're break dance fighting!” Yeah, that is pretty much how the benders fight using their chosen elements and it looks absolutely retarded. I have only seen a few episodes of Avatar and fighting was not a key element in the show but it seemed that Aang never had to twirl around like an idiot to use his abilities. It is absurd that we are supposed to be seeing an epic battle of Earth Benders versus Fire Benders (who had enslaved them) and what we get is a modern fantasy version of West Side Story! If you are a fan of Avatar, do yourself a favor and do not see this film buy the series on DVD and be content. This is definitely the worst movie I have seen this year and no one, I mean no one, should waste their money nor their time seeing it.
