'The Last Airbender' Movie Review

There is absolutely nothing positive I can say about The Last Airbender other than I'm positive it's one of the worst films of the year. M Night Shyamalan ventures into family friendly adventure territory and the result is a disastrous, juvenile, and boring waste of millions of dollars of special effects and pretty scenery. There's so much wrong with The Last Airbender that it's actually a wonder it ever saw the light of day, much less a prime summer release date.

Fans of the Nickelodeon cartoon series that serves as the source material for The Last Airbender are going to be hard-pressed to make it through the entire film without heckling the screen or walking out before it's over. From the casting of white actors in the lead roles to the atrocious dialogue to action scenes that lack any punch, The Last Airbender is one big mess.

The Last Airbender - The Story

In the world of The Last Airbender, there are four tribes of people: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Siblings Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) are Water people who, while out hunting, stumble upon a sphere of ice housing a weird animal and a small boy. They bring the strange, tattooed boy named Aang back to their camp where they carry on the most rudimentary inquiry as to who he is before the fierce Fire tribe, led by Zuko (not Danny from Grease but Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire), comes and captures the kid and hauls him away on one of their massive ships.

Zuko has issues with his father, the Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis), and has been disowned unless he finds the Avatar. A short test proves Aang is the Avatar, and proves the kid playing the Avatar (newcomer Noah Ringer) is way, way out of his league as the star of a major motion picture.

Anyway, Aang escapes and with the help of Katara (who can bend water) and Sokka (who can't really do anything), he heads off to learn the bending skills he didn't pick up when he was actually alive hundreds of years ago (he'd been in that water bubble for a long, long time after storming off in a huff from a secret Avatar initiation ceremony). And while learning the skills, Aang the Avatar must unite the people against the evil Fire tribe. To do this, he must use kung fu/air guitar skills that make it so he doesn't actually touch a single person, which means no blood is shed in any of the film's battle scenes.

The Cast

As previously mentioned, Noah Ringer is not up to starring in a feature film yet. He may have great martial arts skills, but his acting is amateurish. It doesn't help that he's surrounded by actors completely wrong for their roles, and I'm not just referring to their ethnic backgrounds. Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone kind of flounder around, neither ever really figuring out who their characters are or what they're supposed to be doing. Rathbone's just there for comic relief - he all but has that tattooed on his forehead - and it feels as though he's in a different film from the rest of the cast because of the silliness he's forced to endure.

Shaun Toub, as Zuko's caring uncle, manages to pull off a fine performance despite nothing to work with. Meanwhile, Dev Patel scowls well, but he's about as dangerous as a puppy even during what are supposed to be his most fearsome moments. But the worst offender in the bad acting category has to be Aasif Mandvi as the commander of the Fire army who hates Zuko and wants to capture the Avatar himself in order to gain more power amongst his people. Mandvi actually, I kid you not, looks like he's doing a very bad impression of Bela Lugosi as Dracula at one point. What the heck?

The Bottom Line

The 3-D version of The Last Airbender is simply cashing in on a now-popular gimmick, and is just a way to get you to fork over more money. Converted to 3-D rather than shot in the format, it's a poor attempt at making the film seem more entertaining - and it doesn't work.

Overall, the effects are okay but the payoff isn't there in any of the fight scenes involving the bending skills. Controlling water, the earth, air, and fire sounds like a pretty interesting way to fight, but as brought to life on screen by Shyamalan, it's actually a pretty damn boring fighting technique. In the film's climatic sequence, Aang controls the ocean and makes a formidable wall of water to repel the Fire tribe's ships. And it's happening and you're thinking, "Finally, the spectacular action scene we've been waiting 90 minutes to see is about to happen!" But then the wall of water just subsides, the ships turn around and sail away, and that hope of a payoff you've been waiting for the entire film sails away alongside them.

And Shyamalan must have thought his film would be playing to the under 6 crowd. Why else would he have his characters narrate even the simplest of actions? If the scene shows your actors walking up to strangers to carry on a conversation, it's not necessary to have a voice-over stating that fact. Hello, McFly! We can see it on the screen and don't need the added annoyance of uninspired voice-overs. I have no patience for films that assume the audience is stupid and can't figure anything out, and The Last Airbender does just that. "Oh look, a character is unrolling a secret scroll. Let's add narration saying the character is unrolling a secret scroll." Why? In case the audience has turned their backs to the screens? Now, if the narration revealed unknown facts that moved the story forward, that would be just fine. It's the fact Shyamalan chose to narrate the obvious that shows he has no respect for his audience.

Hopefully they mean it when they say this is The Last Airbender. It's the last time I ever want to see anyone 'bending' anything.

GRADE: D-

The Last Airbender was directed by M Night Shyamalan and is rated PG for fantasy action violence.

Theatrical Release: July 1, 2010

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