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Title: The Last Airbender
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, strangely enough this is only a mild PG-rated film, making this Shyamalan's most family friendly film yet. Recommended for ages 7 and up. |
Oh boy do I feel tired. I know that summer films can be hit or miss in terms of quality, but this is one of the rare years where I had my Top Ten Worst list almost completely written before the summer even hit us. Now I have just witnessed what is potentially the worst film of the year: M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender.” Now I’m a big fan of Shyamalan’s films. Some of them aren’t great but they all have at least decent direction, interesting art direction, and a decent amount of suspense that keeps you guessing. I’ve always defended him even when his movies aren’t good, but I’m going to be crude and blunt here: If he gets half the shit for this movie as I think he will I won’t defend him because he deserves every bit of it this time.
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The funny thing is him making a movie adaptation of one of the best children’s shows in many years seemed like a match made in heaven. You have a complicated, fantastical story that comes from a show that actually has lots of beauty in it’s characters and animation. You have a director who is known for his pacing and visual abilities. And THIS is the turd that was crapped out of his butt?! THIS was the best he could do?! Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. I don’t even know where to begin on how bad this is because there’s just so much wrong with it. Turns out the shorting of the title (“Avatar: The Last Airbender” couldn’t be used thanks to James Cameron’s recent opus) was just the beginning of this films problems.
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The movie is visually lackluster. The images are too dark to see most of the time. If seen in 3D the gimmick is too...well, gimmicky. The casting is completely off because they’ve hired white actors to play Asians. The casting is completely off because the kids also make for lousy actors. The script is wildly stupid and vague at best. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on. I know that main protagonist Aang is the last airbender and able to control all four elements and thus bring peace to the world but...that’s about as far as the movie gets. The rest of the time it’s the prince of the Fire Nation that is trying to capture Aang, even though his wise uncle points out that his nation is a nation full of jerks and that he would do better to marry a local girl instead.
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Aang makes two friends who are so dull and pointless I could never quite figure out why they are there. Their like that annoying neighbor kid who always hangs around your house but never seems to do anything. Then there’s lots of fighting with elements of wind, water, and fire. Most of the fights lack any suspension or weight behind them, and the warriors look more like they’re dancing funny rather then summoning elements. Watching Shyamalan direct an action sequence turns out to be one of the most painful things ever. The editing is so poorly constructed either the studio edited it, or else he’s WAY out of his comfort zone!
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Though I won’t spoil the ending like all franchise movies this one ends on a cliffhanger. The movie has the subtitle “Book One: Water.” Shyamalan said up-front that this will be a trilogy and that this film is not meant to stand alone. Alright, I get that. The TV show told an arc story as well and I didn’t complain. But then, the show is entertaining and this movie is painful. The only thing even remotely worthy of note is James Newton Howard’s excellent musical score, which is more epic and inspiring then anything you actually see on screen. If this is what we ultimately have to look forward to with the future movies then Shyamalan can keep the other two books.
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