Synopsis: Aang is declared the new Avatar, a person who is master of controlling all four elements and destined to keep the balance of the world. But being 12 years old, Aang decides to run away from his responsibilities and ends up frozen for a 100 years. When he is finally thawed out, he learns the price of trying to escape his destiny.
Pros:
- This movie might finally end M Night Shyamalan’s film career.
- It sort of completes a trilogy of bad live action remakes, beginning with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chung Li, then continuing with Dragonball: Evolution, and hopefully ending with Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- The Riff Tracks for this movie are going to be amazing.
- The soundtrack for this movie isn’t bad. Actually, I think I might buy some of this music.
Cons
- Acting, script, special effects, the cinematography, everything in this movie feels like punishment from God.
- A single dollar is too much to ask to see this movie.
- This movie also wasted $150 million dollars that could have went to make better movies.
- It’s not even funny in the way bad movies can be… it’s just bad.
- There is still the possibility of a trilogy.
Things I’d Rather Do Then See This Movie Again: Eat glass.
For People That Liked: Elektra.
Overall: If you want a movie to take little kids too, then take them to see Toy Story 3. Otherwise, only watch this movie if you hate yourself.
There is Nothing Good About This Movie
I like to find something good in a movie, even a film that I think is horrible. Usually I try to imagine a human being that would like that kind of movie, and try and write my review to explain why that person should watch that movie. But with M. Night Shyamalan’s Avatar: The Last Air Bender, I cannot imagine a single human being on Earth that could enjoy this film. Fans of the animated series will be disgusted by this adaptation, people who like martial arts movies will not find repetitive fight and uninteresting fight scenes, and parents wanting to take their kids to a children movie will spend the entire movie hearing “why didn’t we go and see Toy Story 3 mommy?”.
It’s hard to narrow down what exactly is wrong with this Avater: The Last Airbender, because everything about this movie is done wrong. The back story is told to the audience through narration, character development is revealed through monologues, Noah Ringer performance of Aang is one of the worst things I’ve seen done by a child actor, the characters Katara and Sokka seem to follow Aang for no reason other then they have to be in the movie, the world is shown through annoying CGI clips of characters starring at the scenery for various contrived reasons, the CGI clips are annoying because they lack any real movement or life and portray the world as lifeless and stale, the fights are uninteresting and are poorly choreographed, the plot doesn’t feel like it’s building to anything epic, for that matter the plot doesn’t seem to be building up to anything interesting, and the whole movie feels like M. Night Shyamalan was trying to learn how to use CGI. This is a movie I’d expect from a film student that recruited his family and friends to act in his movie, not a professional hollywood production.
The only thing that was remotely good about this movie was some of the music composed by James Newton Howard. It’s not on the level of Hans Zimmer of Jerry Goldsmith, but I’d say it’s a decent soundtrack. Some of the tracks are good enough that I’d consider picking them up on iTunes. It’s just such a shame that Howard’s talents were wasted on scoring a movie this utterly bad.
I could go into more excruciating details about why this movie was bad, but I will simply use it’s Rotten Tomatoes Rating to show how bad it is.
Star Trek: Nemesis – 37%
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening – 18%
Dragon Ball Evolution – 13%
Halle Berry’s Catwoman – 10%
Uwe Boll’s Postal – 8%
Mortal Kombat: Annhilation – 7%
Avatar: The Last Airbender Live Action – 6%
Battlefield Earth – 2%
Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever – 0%
That’s right! M. Night Shyamalan has managed to create a movie that is marginally better than Battlefield Earth and slightly worse then Mortal Kombat: Annhilation.
Why Did They Make This Movie?
Why give this project to M. Night Shyamalan?
Even if you forget that his last two movies were horrible and he’s known for being the twist guy, he’s never made a movie like this. He’s never made a movie with heavy CGI, or with lots of martial arts, or really any extended action scenes. He’s the bloody “twist guy” who makes pseudo mystery and suspense movies, not “light hearted martial arts movies guy”. I know it’s good for him to try something new and take a chance, but a $150 million dollar epic that is slated to be a trilogy isn’t what could be called “acceptable risk”
Then there’s the casting of the Asian lead Aang with white actor Noah Ringer. Many fans complained that casting Noah Ringer was racist, but I held out hope that the decision was made because it’s hard to find a child actor that can act. So long as the kid could act, I’d be happy. Noah Ringer can’t act. He can’t do facial expressions, deliver lines, or show emotions appropriate to his scenes. And while his martial arts skills are considerable, the choreography of the movie fails to show them off.
For that matter, why make this movie? There wasn’t anyone clamoring for a live action remake of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” A wiser use of the $150 million would be to just make another series in the Avatar universe, or an animated movie. Hopefully Hollywood will learn from it’s mistakes, and at least M. Night Shyamalan’s career should be over.
Oh wait. M. Night Shyamalan is having a secret project that features Bruce Willis, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Bradley Cooper. Why… oh god why…
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Victor Vargas is the manager and editor of Anime-Alberta. He's the former chair of Animethon 16 & Animethon 15 as well as a former president of BAKA (The Banzai Anime Klub of Alberta)