The Last Airbender Review

Regardless of excellent source material, amazing sets, good cinematography, and music to fit the scale, The Last Airbender is a movie that just plain sucks. There are so many things wrong with the film, that it is difficult to enjoy it even going into it with low expectations. M. Night Shyamalan has wrecked yet another beautiful vehicle.

There are four nations: The Fire Nation, Water Nation, Earth Nation, and Air Nomads (wtf, nomads?). The Fire Nation has declared war on the other three nations and the only one that can stop them is the Avatar; The only being who can master all four elements in the art of Bending (controlling an element) and the only one who can travel between the Spirit World and reality. Pretty solid plot, right? You would be surprised how Shyamalan can mess things up.

The film is based on the insanely popular nickelodeon show "Avatar: The Last Airbender". The tv show, which is aimed at kids but can very well be enjoyed by adults on a separate level, is a marvel in itself. The backdrop of the story, the world, and the characters are all very interesting and unique. Each character has a flaw they must overcome in their own way, and the show ties in themes that aren't present in most shows today. While it is geared towards kids with low attention spans, there are many elements that take the show deeper, making it one of my top five shows of all time. But none of these are present in Shyamalan's adaptation. The movie is shallow and heartless, which betrays the very things that made the show so great.

What kills me is that the movie had so much potential. The sets were creative and just flat out amazing, the music was great, the costumes were top notch, and the acting was bearable. There are two things that made this movie crash. Two things that worked together to make the movie a running joke. Two things that caused the sets to be wasted, and money to be lost.

The script and pacing. The script was terribly shallow, silly, and overall just bad. But is it really a surprise, seeing how Shyamalan wrote his own script? And then there is the pacing. The show spans twenty episodes (about 9 hours), while the movie is an hour and a half.

Really Shyamalan?

The show, unlike a lot of shows, does not have a lot of filler. In nearly every episode, a significant event occurs. There is so much content, so much history, and so much development, I am wondering why the movie was shorter than most of the other movies playing at the time. The movie tries to sell itself off as an epic, but an hour and a half just doesn't do it. The scenes are weak, then they are short, which normally leaves one laughing at the end of it. There are also terrible excuses to give insight to the world, even going as far as pulling a random character aside to tell the story of Zuko; a prince who is trying to regain his honor.

Up until the last fifteen minutes of the movie, it is all exposition. Major events that happen in the movie normally lack any good reason for them to happen. The 'reasons' didn't even seem like reasons at all, they seemed more like an excuse to take an epic section from the show and put it into the movie. Even the finale (which was good, I admit) didn't have a good reason to happen. The reasoning, the drive, and explanations that appear in the show just aren't present in the movie, making it an incoherent fail.

There is also the lack of build up, which makes a few of the key points in the movie feel like they are just there. What is supposed to be a 'holy crap!' twist (which appears in the show), it turns out to be a 'Oh...ok'. Most of this is caused by an abysmal script and terribly paced story. Often times through the movie, I wondered why the director would make decisions as he did. I mean, he isn't Uwe Boll; Shyamalan doesn't bleed stupidity like him. I will give Uwe Boll this though: he is consistently bad. If I had been told "oh yeah, Uwe Boll is making a 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' movie", I wouldn't of gotten my hopes up at all. But Shyamalan is a cruel man; he makes a good movie, then a bad one, then a good one, then a few bad ones. Then my optimism gets the best of me.

While I appreciate what Shyamalan tried to do, he is just an idiot when it comes to this. In the show, there are forms to bending (similar to martial arts). And, naturally, the harder the form, the more advanced the bending. But Shyamalan said 'to hell with that!'. He says 'lets do interpretive dance instead!'...ok, Shyamalan, I will let you do that. But when it takes five people six movements to throw a (small) rock, then one man one movement to shift a giant slab of earth, thats when I say enough. The bending in the show is awesome, innovative, and outside of the box, but Shyamalan doesn't seem to be able to think outside of the box in this regard. The bending in the movie is largely lame (except a certain bit of water bending in the finale) and it isn't present enough. You can see pretty much every fight scene between all the trailers, and in these fight scenes are long moments of nothing. Which means that a lot of times, even though you are watching an action scene, there isn't much action.

This movie just fills me with a rage known only too Twilight (until now). If Shyamalan does make another Last Airbender, he better pray that he fixes his act.

I will riot.

The Last Airbender: 4/10
Recommend? No
Live up to the Hype? No