The Last Airbender : Hopefully the Last Ever

Its just a clusterfuck in shoddy packaging

There’s no words to describe how terrible M. Night Shyamalan’s  The Last Airbender. The professional and amateur reviews already speak for themselves, speaking the undeniable truths of a movie that in itself dare to call itself a movie, let alone hoping to be one of the summer’s, if not the summer’s, largest block buster hit. There’s something detrimentally off about this movie and the list of the things that make it that way is too long to even recite, let alone recount. But I’ll mention the big ones that stood out and made me very close to the point of getting up and walking out to save my image of a show I truly enjoy.

If you think the racial controversy of the film is the biggest set back, you’re absolutely wrong. In fact, the race fail the movie was originally flagged with is the least of your concerns. The sad thing of the movie takes an award winning storyline and twists it into a complete garbled mess of nonsense is probably the biggest crime the production crew committed. Every bit of what made the Avatar world unique in it’s own regard is completely stripped down, shoddily rebuilt, and presented in a lackluster package of half assed special effects and sets. We take an Asian fantasy world and twist that world into a modern, almost post-Apocalyptic future Earth, remove any cultural distinctions that made each nation unique, and throw it in a blender with the failed intentions of hoping it looks good, let alone makes sense.

But that’s not the cherry on the cake; if you’re a fan going into this movie expecting to see your beloved characters brought to life on the big screen, you’re going to be shaking in rage. Not because of the racial issues and not because of the half ass acting (which we’ll get to later), but because each character is an empty shell of themselves. Aang (or should I say Ong?) is unreadable – you can’t tell if he’s a playful monk or a scared kid… is he having regret or is he angry? Katara is merely his pretty little side kick, a shell of her animated counterpart that was strong-willed and determined. Sokka (its actually Soekah, sorry) is flat and off cue, his sarcasm nothing more than failed attempts at being funny, and Zuko is too busy going on and on about his honor and father that you just want to go jump through the movie screen and punch the kid in the mouth! Get the fuck over it, fix the problem, and to and grow some fucking balls already!

The lack of humor, which added personality to the show, was all but forgotten. Shyamalan’s writing takes the Avatar world and makes it serious – too serious and over the top than what it needed to be. What made the characters endearing was that even though they were stuck in the middle of a war and soon to be the key players overturning the tables, they still were teenagers and weren’t afraid to cling to whatever innocence they had left. From Sokka’s sarcasm to Zuko’s straightman, all of it was what made the characters of the Avatar world so endearing. Its completely lost in this adaptation – its almost as if you’re not looking at the Avatar cast but merely mirrored versions. There’s no connection – none at all – and even though you desperately try to make that connection, you’re left wishing these characters were even a percentage close to their counterpart. If there was one character even remotely close to their counterpart, it would have to be General Iroh (E-row, in this case).

While I read in previous reviews that Dev Patel was the only saving grace in the film, I was highly disappointed by his portrayal of Zuko. His “rage” and “anger” came off as harsh overacting that didn’t convince me that he was trying to restore his honor but rather bitch and moan that his daddy didn’t love him anymore and he had no honor. There was no body to his character – No explanation – He’s just ANGRY and we need to sympathize cause his daddy HATES him. He maybe a pretty boy, but his acting was absolutely horrible and I feel sorry because this movie could break his blossoming career with a performance like that. Aasif Mandvi’s performance of Zhao was like watching a cosplayer at an anime convention trying to be the bad guy but failing hard. Zhao was a ruthless conqueror, strong commander, and an absolute asshole; Aasif Mandvi’s Zhao is an asskisser who reports to Ozai every five minutes explaining the plot of the story and fucking HESITATES to kill the Moon Spirit. His delivery sometimes made me think Jon Stewart was going to come popping out of no where and he was going to flip right into correspondent mode.

I won’t even bother with Katara’s actress; she pissed me off the most. It wasn’t Katara, it was just random teenaged girl on an adventure with big brother. No, go fuck yourself and your shitastic acting.

Between a horrible script (“Sokka and Yue became very close those few weeks”), terrible cut scenes and editing (Star Wars had better transitioning than this shit), and absolutely terrible acting (I will stop them!), I felt as if my beloved show was being raped and torn apart before my very eyes and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Yes, Shyamalan may have had the artistic choice and license to do whatever he wanted but he made a grave mistake in alienating the existing fan base. He tried to smash in an entire season of events into a 90 minute movie and didn’t know what to do with the story; key characters crucial to the developing story are left out and every bit of the dialogue is spent wasting time explaining to the audience what was going on.

Katara: We eventually made it to the Nothern Water Tribe and they greeted us with open arms.

Aang: I ran away from the temple because I refused to accept my duty as the Avatar and now I regret it

Zhao: I will go to the Nothern Water Tribe to kill the moon spirit because I went to the secret library and found out where it lives!

Yue: I was born asleep and my parents put me in the Oasis and the Moon Spirit gave me life again and so that’s why my hair is white!

Okay, I get it. I don’t need you to hold my hand throughout the entire movie and explain everything to me. Despite your beliefs, you can tell a story and the audience get it. But, even then, the audience was still left going ” What the fuck is going on and why are they suddenly here and there and everywhere? Why are they suddenly rebelling a village when they were just an Air Temple?” The pacing is too chaotic that even the explanations made a lick of sense. It was like the movie forgot to take its medication.

Once the film ended, people wordlessly got up and quickly left. Many complained about how terrible it was and some wanted their money back. The little 5 year old kid that sat next me vented his frustration over the character names and laughed at how ridiculous Zuko sounded. The happy gathering of Avatar fans who arrived at the movie early left quite and in disappointment, besides one or two. It was like watching the USA/Ghana match all over again – you walk away shaking your head because it was such a disappointment knowing there was so much potential wasted.

M. Night Shyamalan did not know what he was doing. The Last Airbender is just him writing a shitastic fanfic and turning it into an over budget motion picture. A fourteen-year-old girl on Fanfiction.net could write a better story than the one Shyamalan shat out his ass. There was too much to work from and not enough time to cover it all and it looked like he didn’t know what to include or how to include it. It was like watching a badly made fan video from Youtube, clips of scenes that don’t flow into each other to form a ‘story’ but rather put together because its action after action after action scene. It wasn’t hard to just take from the five main episodes of the series and condense it into a movie — but again, I’ll repeat myself: M. Night Shyamalan did not know what he was doing.

Thanks to him, he pretty much fucked over the franchise; which is sad because the franchise is genuinely good. At the end of the day, I’m glad I didn’t pay to see this movie but I’m pissed off 90 minutes of my life was wasted with this garbage. Nickeloden and Paramount took advantage of the situation and it backfired.

I doubt we’re getting a Book 2 and I prefer it that way as long as Shyamalan is at the helm. The only one’s I can see enjoying this movie are those 12 year old fans that just don’t care about anything else but bending or try to view this as a “separate” work (and even then, you’re simply lying to yourself to believe this mess is actually good — a soap opera on CBS is better than this movie). To me, I can’t enjoy the disrespect of a creative team’s blood, sweat, and tears. Maybe we’ll get a reboot in a few years, once everyone forgets this film existed. One can dream.