The Last Airbender (*½)
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone,
Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, Seychelle Gabriel, Cliff Curtis
Seen: 12th September 2010
*½
Out of ****
The
Last Airbender is the ill-advised live action version of the anime series
Avatar: The Last Airbender. Katara (Petlz) is the last waterbender in the
Southern Water Tribe, and when she and her brother Sokka (Rathbone) go hunting,
they discover something under the ice; a sphere that, when Sokka cracks it
open, releases a young boy with odd tattoos over his head and body. This boy
turns out to be Aang (Ringer), the Last Airbender – a beacon for hope across the
four regions, where the Fire nation is oppressing almost all the other nations by
trying to ferret out any benders, be it Earth, Water or Air – they are effectively
the destroyers of “magic”, even though they use their own form of it.
Aang
was frozen for a century, the Fire nation have been looking for him all along
after exterminating the Air nation a century back. They are so desperate to
find him that Fire Lord Ozai (Curtis) has banned his son, Prince Zuko (Patel); until
he brings back the Last Airbender that is. The Last Airbender ran away from his
people before he could be fully trained, and as a result he needs to be taken
to the Northern Water Tribe, who’ve been too far from the reach of the Fire
People to be oppressed, and have thus perfected the art of water bending, to
teach him. Sokka immediately falls in love with their princess, Yue (Gabriel), and becomes her bodyguard for
the coming Fire invasion.
The
Fire people, who are the villains in The Last Airbender, seem to all be of Indian
or Middle Eastern decent, which is strange, as M. Night Shyamalan himself
belongs to that group – maybe he’s working towards some massive redemption for
the Fire people in the next movie (if he is ever given opportunity to make it).
As it is, The Last Airbender is extremely weak, with dialogue that makes one
cringe around every bend in the story. The actors are mostly terrible, with
Jackson Rathbone leading the way, you don’t get this wooden without exercise.
Dev Patel, who was such a revelation in Slumdog Millionaire is a mere melancholy
shadow of the buoyant character he portrayed in the 2009 Oscar winner. The 3D
is terrible, as scenes with fast movement has the viewer wishing for things to
come back into focus while your eyes are reeling from the blurring. Shaun Toub,
who plays Iroh, Zuko’s uncle, looked as if he was about 3 feet ahead of his
hair, and he was standing still! I remember thinking during Resident Evil:
Afterlife the previous day that 3D gives the makers of a movie an opportunity
to add layers of detail without having it look too out of place as special
effects, but here even the advantage of having another layer or set of layers
to play with wasn’t good enough – things just didn’t look authentic at all.
With
terrible dialogue and the frightening prospect of having to sit through a
sequel to this movie as the story isn’t completed, I most definitely cannot
recommend The Last Airbender. It is an awful movie held together by some good special
effects and laughable dialogue. Even the children sitting next to me in the
cinema laughed at times when it couldn’t have been for intended humour, but
rather for the story’s awkward presentation. The Last Airbender is a strong
competitor for The Happening as the low point of M. Night Shyamalan’s career.
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