THE LAST AIRBENDER: One too many airbenders for me

Note to Mr. Shyamalan: please make The Last Airbender your last movie

Stars: 0.5


I’ve never been one to pull a stale pun out of my pocket, let alone two, but this movie really deserves an awkwardly sad response. In the immortal words of Seth Myers and Amy Poehler: “REALLY?!”. I walked into this movie as if I’d had 5 cappuccinos. I was ready to have my mind blown to bits… but this?! I felt so dirty after seeing this horrible horrible mess. So M. Night, here’s what was wrong with your film:

Once the trailers for this much anticipated movie arrived the first problem hit me. How is it possible for such a long and intricate first season to be captured in a two hour (three hour tops) film? As a follower and big fan of Avatar The Last Airbender (the cartoon series) this was automatically a big question. Each episode in the animated series built upon the individual character, pasting new traits, feelings, and back-stories into their biographies. Through these episodes the viewer was able to wedge themselves in the story, as is true in every series whether animated or not. This of course is one of the reasons that television shows have the upper hand over movies: the characters are allowed more room to blossom into a heroine with a dramatic past or a villain with never ending determination. Consequently, for any movie this is an issue, a problem the director and screenwriter must artfully solve. If a director is skilled enough this unraveling act will be wonderful.

I kept telling myself that this movie was going to be The Sixth Sense Shyamalan not The Happening Shyamalan. That the relationship I had developed with the TV series Ang, Katara, and Sokka after hours in front of the television screen would be the same as the one I would make with these three after watching the movie. But in this case both director and screenwriter Shyamalan failed. I had deluded myself and the problem I had originally foreseen took its throne, to my great sadness. It was painfully obvious that the director had been overwhelmed with the possible content and that the screenwriting was atrocious. The movie rushed so fast from point A to point B to Point C, something the original series had more than ten hours to do but the movie had less than two hours for. In this mad frenzy to define the plot and action, every single character was lost in a blizzard of special effects.

None of the actors were able to hold their own, especially the protagonist. This in part was due to the stiff cold dialogue brought to you by screenwriter Shymalan but mostly the cardboard acting. None of the actors were up to par and I mean none. They delivered their dialogue as if they were eating paste and had either no emotion when it was needed, the wrong emotion at the wrong time, or were just too emotional all the time. The biggest disappointment was Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame, though he was by far the best actor in the film, the lesser of two evils, he was still an evil none-the-less. As a villain with what some people would call “daddy issues”, Patel only manages to deliver a two dimensional performance for what should have been the most complicated character in the entire series. Though this film had wonderful special effects (finally something positive!) it did not by any means soar, call me old fashioned but I like my movies with at least a C grade script and plot. Sorry to all the animated series fans, but this film is by no means what it could have been.

The Actors: were certainly a bad pick
The Screenplay, Plot, and Dialogue: left the audience feeling empty and dazed
The Director: had way too much on his plate and, as illustrated by the product, couldn’t quite manage.