The Last Airbender (2010) Film Review

Rated PG For Fantasy Action Violence.

1hr 43min/103min.

Avatar The Last Airbender is a television series that premired when I was around 8 years old. Watching the series then, I didn't care for it, but watching it now, It is a masterfully crafted animated series that didn't treat it's audience like little kids and was dark show while having a light tone. The opprotunity to create a Live-Action version of this film should be inventive.

When the director for the film was announced, I had worries. M. Night Shamalayn's last three films weren't not very good(The Village, Lady In The Water and The Happening). I had high hopes for this film because The director claims that him and his family are huge fans of the film. Well now I highly doubt this because the film that came out does not at all represent the show whatsoever.

The world is made up of four nations: Earth, Fire, Water and Air. Brother Sokka and sister Kotara stumble across a boy frozen in the water. The boy reveals himself be be Aang, who reveals himself to be the Avatar, An all-powerful being that can control all of the elements. Aang is being pursued after Prince Zuko who wants to claim the title of Avatar, so Sokka and Kotara do all they can do to protect him.

Shamalayn likes to tell a story, he likes to write the dialouge to be filled with constant exposition to the point where the plot becomes so complicated to follow. Every scene is filled with two paragraphs length of exposition. You can tell expostion in a few scenes in a film, which is the point of exposition, to further the plot. When you have a whole movie filled with exposition, you lose the audience because the plot becomes to hard to follow.

Shamalayn also like long tracking shots, shots to follow the action or characters, But these constantly get thrown at the viewers. When a film has tracking shots, it's usually to show action or in an indie film, show a charcter doing something, like walking through a crowd in a club(Boogie Nights). But here, his tracking shots show nothing and serve no purpose whatsoever. They drag the movie even longer because nothing is being shown.

The acting is plain abysmal. It seems like the actors are going through the motions. They don't try to represent the characters whatsoever and just stare blankly at the camera. The director likes to do a lot of akward close ups that really feel uncomfortable.

The writing is unbelivably lazy, and yes The characters names are mispronounced from the show. Aang is pronounced Oong in the film, but I'm not focusing on that. Plot points in the show are either not mentioned are just glossed over. When nothing in your film adaptation follows the show correctly, you have potentially ruined your franchise. The film is an aganozing expierience to sit through. This is the worst film adaptation I have ever seen and one of the worst films I have ever seen.. The movie has akward tracking shots and colse-ups, an overload of exposition, terrible acting, lazy writing and shows a complete lack of loyalty for the source material of which it is adapting. I give the Zero Star rating only to movies that deserve it. I think this more than deserves it.

Side Note: Yes I have seen The Legend Of Korra, which is the sequel show. I love that one as well. I just hope that Shamalayn or anybody adapt this show into a live-action film. If any was to make a film of this series, it should have been the creators and done in an animated style, not this hunk of junk.