The Last Airbender is a terrible, terrible movie by a man who was once promising but has become a terrible, terrible filmmaker. It features terrible, terrible actors speaking terrible, terrible dialogue in the midst of a terrible, terrible story with terrible, terrible special effects. As far as I’m concerned it is not only the worst film I’ve seen this year, but it is also the most disappointing. I went in to this film wanting so badly to like it, and to allow M. Night Shyamalan one last chance. I’m sorry, M-dawg, but I think I’m going to have to give up on you.
This movie is not just bad in the conventional sense, but a shockingly inept piece of work. It does not feel like something even made by Hollywood. The fact that anyone could have read Shyamalan’s script and said “Yep, that’s a keeper” is beyond me. It plays like a video you would find on YouTube where a bunch of fans of the original TV show got together and made a live action tribute. Only in this case one of their dads much have been rich.
I have not seen an episode of the original series Avatar: The Last Airbender (apparently they couldn’t keep the Avatar title because another movie has claimed it. Never heard of it.) but I cannot believe this film does any justice to the animated show, which was actually quite critically hailed. I’ve looked over the plot of the series (Yay, Wikipedia!), and the film covers the first season during which there is a race to get our friendly neighborhood Avatar and the Fire Nation moves in on the Water Nation and so on.
But guess what? Sequel, baby! The movie ends with a coda (all too common these days) where they all but advertise the coming sequel. This is not a sure thing, but if it makes money, I’m sure it will happen. It might even be good, if they get rid of one person.
This freakin' guy.
M. Night Shyamalan deserves most of the blame for this incredibly awful piece of work. He writes dialogue here which a third grader would laugh at. These are lines which actors have no chance with, including one of the most wooden performances of all time: Jackson Rathbone as Sokka, a young warrior from the Water Tribe. Rathbone can be seen in the Twilight films, where there are NEVER any wooden performances. (snicker) These characters are forced to recite obvious statements to each other, as well as every clichéd piece of dialogue in the book. The script is written with the elegance of an elementary school “what I did this summer” essay. At one point one of the main characters begins to narrate the story out of nowhere, and it is only to move the plot along about a month. Then we never hear the narration again.
Not to mention this is the first time in which Shyamalan’s direction is completely terrible. Yes, his last three films before this have been bad, but most of the damage was done while writing, something he has never been particularly good at. (One of these days he just needs to swallow his pride and hire a different screenwriter.) Here, though he is faced with a large budget and the prospect of shooting prolonged action sequences. At no point during this movie did I feel any tension or excitement. The fight scenes feel like they’re out of a videogame, and in the “your turn, my turn” format. This should give you an idea:
In general, Shyamalan is not very good whenever his story has to go anywhere in a hurry. I saw this at the end of Signs, a movie which I mostly loved until it turned clunky in the last five minutes. At times the cutting here is incomprehensible. Characters go from one location to another without much of an explanation, and whenever anything needs to be explained it is done so in a line or two. Much of this is probably because Shyamalan was forced to squeeze an entire season of television into two hours, but that is no excuse for this dreck.
This does not get the actors off the hook, however. Shyamalan may not help, but none of the actors turn in a good performance. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the closest to such a performance we get is Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi as Commander Zhao. There is actually some wickedness to this guy. Let’s not go too far, but I might consider giving this guy an acting gig in the future. Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire is mostly angry all the time as Prince Zuko, the disgraced son of the King of the Fire Nation Lord Ozai. Then we get to Aang, our Avatar, and boy is this kid (Noah Ringer) wrong for the part. I don’t want to pile on, but too often does he appear to be an excited little boy who’s like, totally psyched to be there. This is probably no fault of his (M-dawg, looking at you) but at no point did I believe I was looking at the savior of humankind. Say nothing of Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water, when there was a different savior of mankind.
This freakin' guy.
I have not even mentioned the look of the film, which is pretty awful itself. Once again, I saw it in 2-D, but here is another film that was changed to 3-D after the fact, as I suspect. From what I’ve heard the 3-D is pretty grotesque, blurring the picture beyond recognition. That means what I saw was the clear picture? Whoa, daddy. It was obvious what was filmed in front of a green screen most of the time, and most impressive special effects appear off screen. The only two good effects occur at the beginning and end of the film. In between the filmmakers are apparently trying to save money or something. Consider one shot as Aang looks upon the village of the Northern Water Tribe and gigantic fireballs are flung at buildings. The camera moves so that Aang's head is between us and all fireball impacts so we don’t see them.
This movie might spell the beginning of the end for Shyamalan. That is a shame, because believe it or not there is some real talent behind the ego and bad films. He has the ability to make great films (see: The Sixth Sense) but he has learned all the wrong lessons from his success. I await your next film, M-dawg. I know you can get back. Right now, though, I’m about to give up.
Rating:
(out of 4)P.S.- I am currently in the process of formulating an M. Night Shyamalan director profile. Let us track his downfall together. Stay tuned.
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