Special Review
This review is a special request from Patreon supporter Patrick Glauber. If you'd like to support me on Patreon, click the button below. Visit PatreonOn February 21, 2005, Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered on Nickelodeon and became an instant hit with critics and fans. The show ran through three seasons, received universal praise, and won several awards, including an Emmy and a Peabody Award. In 2007, Paramount Pictures announced a live-action film was in production, with M. Night Shyamalan attached to write and direct. Initially, the show’s creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, were excited about Shyamalan’s involvement and wanted to offer input. Despite his then-recent track record, the producers were confident in Shyamalan’s abilities to bring the show to the big screen. With a $150 million production budget, plus $130 million for marketing, this was Shyamalan’s most expensive film to date. Unfortunately, the film ran into controversy over the casting, resulting in fan backlash and even boycotts. After months of production, The Last Airbender hit theaters on July 1, 2010.
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Synopsis
For centuries, the four nations of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air have lived in peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, the Fire Nation declared war on the other nations, wiping out the Air Tribes and enslaving the Earth Nation. One hundred years later, Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) find a young boy frozen in ice. By accident, they free the boy, Aang (Noah Ringer), who turns out to be the last surviving Air Bender. Meanwhile, Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) is searching for the Avatar, who can master the four elements. To reclaim his honor, he seeks to capture the Avatar for his father, Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis). It turns out Aang is the Avatar, and he must master the four elements to restore peace to the world. With his friends Katara and Sokka and his flying bison Appa, Aang must master the first element: Water.
Review
Even with its infamous reputation, I wanted to give The Last Airbender the benefit of the doubt. When they recreated the opening sequence from the show at the beginning, I thought, “Well, how bad could it be?” Sadly, once the opening text crawl showed up with Nicola Peltz’s narration, I knew I was in trouble. She delivers several expository monologues throughout the movie that make Harrison Ford’s narrations from Blade Runner sound riveting. Most of the acting here is flat and wooden, with Jackson Rathbone being the worst offender. Noah Ringer’s acting isn’t great either, but child actors usually aren’t that great, and he has some unintentionally hilarious deliveries. Dev Patel and Aasif Mandvi are at least trying to deliver decent performances, but even they can’t save the script. It’s unfortunate, considering Patel went from starring in the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire to appearing in this.
The film’s biggest problem, aside from the acting, the script, and the action, is that it’s dull and uninteresting. It’s as if the movie sucked out all the humor, emotion, drama, and excitement from the show. Given the montages and voice-overs, you can tell that the filmmakers tried cramming as much material as possible. James Newton Howard’s score is exciting, and some of the visuals are decent to give the movie some credit. I could go on about plot holes, character inconsistencies, and deviations from the source, but there are too many to list. While it’s easy to blame Shyamalan since he wrote and directed the film, I believe there was some studio meddling. Considering the show’s creators were not on board and had their input denied, I suspect Paramount is responsible. Overall, The Last Airbender is a poor adaptation and a terrible movie on its own merits.
Buy The Last Airbender from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KxQlLN.
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