I wasn't a big fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender went it first premiered on Nickelodeon. The animation was clean and crispy, the voice actors did their job effectively, but the slow pacing and structure made myself throw in the towel and wait for the inevitable box set at its conclusion. Despite getting better in content and quality and receiving more fanfare with animation critics, I still couldn't get back in.
If there ever was a reason for myself to watch Avatar in its bulk form, it is to wipe and rewrite all of the atrocities of sight and sound I have experienced with this film. THE LAST AIRBENDER is a colossal monstrosity of both adaptations of television shows and simply any fantasy stories. It dumps nonsensical exposition, weird jargon, characterization twists, and showcases all of it often and in a swift confusing editing composition.
Insufferable auteur M. Night Shyamalan returns again to ruin the imaginations and minds of people but now with more money at his disposal. He has stated that he loves and understands the source material due to his own children's love of the show. Shyamalan must have been lackadaisical watching it with his brethen, as his script is simply brief episode highlights connected to each other by the smallest of threads. There is no suspense, no threats, no gentle progress to cause the viewer to cheer and wait for what's next; Characters who have trouble mastering their powers suddenly are experts. A romance lasts all of three scenes. People teleport and travel constantly at different places with non-helpful subtitles labeling their locations.
Admittedly, the plot of the show isn't actually easy to digest: The world is divided by nations with the power to control four elements. The Fire Nation, the strongest and most prosperous, wants to dominate the world for some reason. In a small village in the Water Nation, two orphaned siblings find and break out a trapped boy who is destined to master all of the elements. Now complicate this to epic proportions in under two hours with plot dumping and more mystical mumbo jumbo to baffle and perplex yourself.
To turn my attention away from further lambasts of the script, let's focus on the direction, the biggest white elephant when discussing Shyamalan's errors. The acting of the main protagonists is literally a forest, and not just because they dabble in the Earth Nation for a sequence. The three main actors are purely one-note with no range of emotions or even martial arts training to hide the criticism away. Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone, playing as the siblings Katarra and Sokka, rely on one look throughout: doe-eyed confusion and constipated angst respectively. But Noah Ringer as the titled character takes a new level of non-emotional impact. No computer effects can save his black hole of charisma. There is a scene where his face takes up the entire screen, as if Shyamalan wanted to have a distinctive platform for Ringer's ineptitude. The only actors worthy of bringing some passion to the preceedings goes to the Indian actors, who are sadly placed as the evil corrupt antagonists to the all-Caucasian faces.
Shyamalan's direction with the camera also creates an abyss full of problems. Despite the fact that this film is supposed to an epic fantasy movie with glamour and grandeur, scenes often have the focus blurring the backgrounds. For example, a supposedly tense moment has a general relying bad news to his lord. Despite having a room full of decorum and the acting chops of Aasif Mandvi, we instead see his distorted body while the back of the lord's head is given important attention. Other scenes have the camera badly tilting, panning, and running into vegetation. Integration of special effects and green screening do not work at all, looking pitiful and cheap despite a huge budget.
I could continue, especially at my utter loathing of its editing, but I can sum up this experience with the structure of the so-called climatic battle at the end. You are going to be fighting with chaos, stop and marvel at something so off-putting, and repeat it continuously. THE LAST AIRBENDER needs to be dust in the wind, because any continuing of the franchise, especially with Shyamalan involved, will just be more afflictions to Hollywood filmmaking.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
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