Scream Bloody Entertainment

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” - Albert Schweitzer

By now it’s become pretty obvious that M. Night Shyamalan’s career is slowly going down the drain. After Lady in the Water, which was received as a mediocre effort, and The Happening, which turned out to be a disaster from the critics’ point of view, it seems that Shyamalan is out of ideas – out of good ones, at least. His latest project, an adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender to the big screen, quickly became one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Most of the buzz surrounding it wasn’t due to M. Night Shyamalan being involved in the project, but mostly because a lot of fans of the animated series have been looking forward to seeing it being turned into a movie. Everyone’s expectations were high, that’s for sure.

I still can’t believe that some people actually thought this project was a good idea. When did trying to squeeze an entire season into a movie ever work? There were also other things which indicated that The Last Airbender would not turn out to be as good as one would think at first. It doesn’t even really bother me how directors choose the actors for a role (as long as they play their part well, I’m alright), but it was quite disappointing to see that mostly White actors were chosen to portray Asian characters in this film, especially because Shyamalan had enough control and money to pick whoever he wanted. He said he wanted to remain true to the series, but this was obviously the first step in the wrong direction.


Here’s a quick synopsis of the movie: the events in The Last Airbender take place in a world which is divided into four nations, each wielding the power of one of the four elements – Air, Earth, Fire and Water. The only one capable of using all the four elements is the Avatar, who keeps the world in balance, but he disappears and during this time the Fire Nation wipes out the Airbenders so they don’t interfere with their plans for world domination. One hundred years later, siblings Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz) from a Southern water tribe discover a young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) trapped in an ice sphere. Little do they know that he is actually the long lost Avatar.

From the very first minutes, it becomes quite obvious that The Last Airbender is not going to be the movie that everyone wants it to be. It starts off with a bit of exposition as Katara narrates and gives us general info about what is going on. The problem is not with the way it starts (squeezing an entire season of the animated series into a movie will undoubtedly require a lot of exposition so as to give newcomers a place to start), but rather that it’s done in such a dull, monotonous way that it’s almost like receiving a history lesson. It also doesn’t stop much and continues during the entire movie, even though after a while it becomes an extremely tedious and – dare I say – at times unnecessary process.


The film’s biggest fault is probably its script. For some reason, the people involved in this production of this movie thought it would be a good idea to leave the whole screenwriting process into the hands of M. Night Shyamalan. Don’t get me wrong, Shyamalan has written quite a few impressive screenplays during his career, but up to this point he never had to deal with something as epic in size as Avatar: The Last Airbender. Adapting its entire first season into one big movie would be a difficult task even for the most experienced of screenwriters. Sure, you could have given Shyamalan a shot at writing the script, but didn’t anyone think it would be a good idea to check up on how things are going from time to time? I mean, it is a lot of money after all and just leaving all the responsibilities to one single person is a pretty big and pointless risk to take.

To cut it short: yes, the script is horrible and unpolished and yes, it may have single-handedly ruined the entire film. Another thing would be Shyamalan’s decision to make the film more mature and drop most of the liveliness that made the series so successful. First of all, why would you want to take the most vital ingredients of the show and just throw them away? The result is a dark movie, way too serious to be able to be enjoyed by a younger audience and much too weird to please adults. The film is about a couple of kids, where would it fit if you took the fun away and started portraying it in a darker light? The answer is: nowhere.


The acting in The Last Airbender is just downright ridiculous. Let’s start with the lead actor: Noah Ringer plays Aang, who is supposed to be a lively and fun-loving kid, but his acting is so wooden and limited that he is only able to convey the simplest of his character’s emotions, let alone carry an entire movie. The rest of the cast isn’t much better either. Jackson Rathbone plays Sokka, but his performance is simply horrible. He seems to act very shy in front of the camera, for whatever reason. It was quite painful to endure his presence on screen, which always seemed to make things worse than they already were (and trust me, things were pretty bad anyway). I got nothing against the guy, but things definitely didn’t click for him in this movie.

Nicola Peltz delivered a pretty weak performance herself, though she was clearly better than her fellow cast members. Maybe with a better script, she would have had the chance to showcase her acting skills a bit more. Dev Patel was definitely the best of the younger actors, and even though his portrayal of Prince Zuko (one of the film’s antagonists) left much to be desired, he was definitely a step forward in terms of the movie’s acting. Still, not as good as in Slumdog Millionaire, and I wasn’t very impressed by his performance there either. Shaun Toub delivered by far the best performance in the film (he played Iroh, Zuko’s uncle and mentor), and it felt really refreshing whenever he appeared on screen and made me forget the film’s countless flaws for a little while.


I may go all negative on The Last Airbender, but the movie has some good stuff going for it (don’t you get all excited now). The special effects can be very impressive at times and some fight scenes are actually pretty awesome. Skip the movie and watch the trailer instead – all the good stuff’s in there. Ironically enough, the 3-D is horrible. Probably on the same level with Clash of the Titans (which, apart from the 3-D, was tons of times better than The Last Airbender). I’m guessing they didn’t have enough time to convert it properly, because I just can’t imagine a lack of money being the problem. I mean, what the hell did they spend $150 million on? Definitely not on acting and screenwriting. Ok, maybe I’m a bit blinded by my frustration and anger with this movie, but you’ll understand where I’m coming from after you see the film for yourself (which I don’t know why you would).

With The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan has reached a new low in his career. I confess that I’m quite a fan of his earlier work, but the man’s gotta know when to give up. The Last Airbender was a huge disappointment and it’s definitely one of the worst films I’ve seen this year. It has barely any redeemable qualities and it doesn’t fall into the so-bad-it’s-good category either, though there are some hilarious moments here and there (not intentionally, of course). I can’t imagine why anyone would bother with this film (and yet, here I am), because there’s literally nothing worth seeing it for. Fans of the series especially should stay away from The Last Airbender, because there’s no way it’s gonna please any of them. Contrary to how things may look like, I have not yet given up hope for M. Night Shyamalan, though I do believe that it’s time to let go and maybe try going in a different direction. Only time will tell, though.