The Last Airbender (movie) Review

not really a story... just a fair warning

First off, if you come away from this with anything, leave with the intent of not paying even a cent to see this film. It's criminal for promoting it as 3D when it's only 3D in three theaters in the entire US.

 

 

I am an avid fan of the cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've seen it through around 3-4 times and have much of it memorized. So to say that I was excited for the premier at midnight would be an understatement.

At first, from watching previews and trailers, I was a little disappointed that more or less none of the cast was Asian. Sure, the characters in the TV show don't look very Asian, but they are in a very eastern environment and it all has a very eastern theme. That threw me off a lot even before I went to see the movie. I kept my hopes high, however. I so badly wanted it to be a success. Sadly to say, it was far from it.

In writing there is an old maxim, "Show, don't tell." Surely it is more exciting to see a thing and understand it than to be simply told about it. And I'm sure you would much rather go see a movie than hear your friend tell you scene-by-scene what happened. Of course, in telling you, things would get jumbled. Events would happen out of time, maybe you'd forget some names and give it your best guess as to how they were pronounced. Perhaps a couple of buddies who saw it with you would imitate acting to try to show you how they fought a certain battle. And in the end of the re-telling, you'd have no idea what just happened, simply shrug and say "Okay?" Well, that's exactly how watching The Last Airbender was.

The movie didn't even start out correctly! In the cartoon, Sokka and Katara are fishing. Sokka makes Katara mad and she breaks this huge iceberg with her waterbending. Out pops Aang. In the movie? They're not fishing. They're not even in a boat. Their costumes are the wrong colour. Katara's hair isn't the same style. They wind up cracking the ice to reveal Aang. Also- terrible acting. No, not just in that scene, in all of them. Not a single one of the actors could do their job. A middle school theater troupe could've done better!

In the cartoon, Aang is very lighthearted. He's a little prankster and loves, LOVES, to have fun. In the movie? I don't recall him smiling, not once. Sokka, in the show, is all about making cheesy jokes. In the film? I think he made one or two. I only laughed once.

Also- they mispronounced so much! Aang, the main character, is pronounced "aang" not "ahng". It's "avatar", not "ahvatar". It's "Sakka", not "Soakah". That's not even all of it.

Events were misplaced and even entire characters left out! A huge part of the fight scene which ends the film was left out.

The firebending was just idiotic. In the film, they need a source of fire to firebend. In the cartoon, they just firebend. It comes from them like an extension of the self.

The entire film was just very anticlimactic.

You know how when you just start reading a book and it takes a while to get into it? You're reading just meaningless information thinking "Okay, it'll pick up. It's just setting the scene." and once you get past that the book is great. Well, the whole movie was just "Okay, it'll be picking up pace soon..." but it never does!

My friend who went with my fiancee and I had never seen the cartoon. He was completely lost. We tried to give him some background info so he wouldn't be, but he wound up nodding in and out of sleep through the whole thing. My fiancee loves the show more than I do and he wanted to leave about half an hour into it. I told him no, that I knew that the water battle in the end would save it. If anything, it made it worse.

Instead of wasting 10 dollars on that poor excuse for a film, we could've spent a dollar on a set of plastic army men and had 100 times more fun than we did in that theater.

My rating? .5 stars

Author's Note

I wonder if movie reviews are allowed here? XD
I claim no talent in this. It's only for informative purposes.
The picture and names are all copyright whoever wrote the story and directed the film.

Reviews

[Clockwork]

I went with a girl who is a big fan and she would agree with you. I knew a little bit about the series from watching a couple seasons and I was also disappointed in the movie. Aside from that the effects were terrible and as you said the acting was terrible. One of the actors was from Slumdog Millionaire I think and not even he seemed to do a a good job with it. Then again the writing was pretty bad so I think that is where a good portion of the blame should also go. Overall your review is dead on, it was a train wreck

[Brandon]

i really don't wanna see this anymore and i love the cartoon and i'v seen it 3-4 times as well >:(

[JuliePetunia]

My friend is an avid avid avid fan of Avatar, and I've never seen her angrier than she was after seeing this movie. She gave it negative infinity stars >.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

What a great review of a bad film. Like most of the hype out there it's all show. They show the best snippets of action and lure you in to a boring hour of time lost. You gave a fabulous review!

[Alessander]

I don't think Sisco and Ebert would mind you reviewing lol I don't really get out to the theaters as much, but the graphics on this movie seemed pretty cool in the previews and I was debating maybe catching it in a matinee or something, but after reading your review, maybe I'll wait til it comes out on dvd...movies come out in dvd like a month later now adays anyways, not to mention the pirates that come out before the movie lol