The Last Airbender Review

Against all odds, It happened again. The day after I saw what I was sure would be the worst movie of the year, I was tricked into seeing something far worse. You really can't prepare yourself for the amazing disappointment that is The Last Airbender. I can say confidently right now that M. Night Shyamalan should never be allowed to make a movie ever again. This is his worst film to date. Shyamalan is one of those directors who doesn't get any better. He only gets worse, but never before has that caused such disappointment as now. The crux of the film that makes it so disappointing is the source material.

I'm one of the people who regularly watched the Nickelodeon television show Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I loved the show. I enjoyed how unpredictable it was compared to so many other childrens show. At the end of the movie, when Princess Yue died, I was surprised by how much I didn't care. In a childrens show, it seemed like such a bold, beautiful, and heartbreaking moment, but in the movie, M. Night Shyamalan just ripped all the humanity out of it. Every moment that could've had some emotional resonance feels simply flat.

The best comparison I can make to any other movie is the film Dragon Wars. Most people probably haven't seen it, but D-War was a small budget Korean action movie that was spoken in the english language, and The Last Airbender felt so much like that. It's as if M. Night Shyamalan saw the movie, thought it was amazing, and then went from there to make it himself, and he called it The Last Airbender. This movie is wooden in every way possible. The acting is painfully lame all across the board. Even actors like Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) and Shaun Toub (Iron Man) come up short. The action in the film isn't at all compelling, and is in fact the worst part of the film.

James Newton Howard's music for the film is great, but it's largely dragged down by the film it's accompanied to. Cinematography by Academy Award winner Andrew Lesnie (Lord of the Rings) is some of the worst I've ever seen in a movie. I cannot fathom seeing the movie in 3D, because I would have absolutely no idea what was going on. Even in its regular format, I couldn't follow what was happening in the film. The plot is made so incomprehensible and convoluted that it soils the great work of the TV series. The costume and set design for the film is pretty astounding and beautiful, but it's mostly wasted. This could've easily been an amazing film, but M. Night Shyamalan, simply put, raped it to death. Do not see The Last Airbender. It's bland, boring, and worse than anything you could imagine.

F