The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender

I was actually worried. Yes, in some way I really was. I was worried that I’d go to see (in a press screening mind you; I wasn’t going to spend my robux on) M. Night Shymalan’s racebending The Last Airbender and have a good time. After all, it is true that on one or two occasions, so it is said by the critics, Shymalan has made a half decent movie.

So it is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility that he might’ve managed to make an entertaining ride out of Nickelodeon’s children animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender for how could he have all white actors in the heroic roles in an Asian’s world and made all the nasty villains appeared like swarthy middle eastern actors. Thus I was worried that there will be some redeeming qualities of the film, be it in design or in narrative, which will anger my hatred. If I am an honest gal, and believe it to be true, then I would be cornered into admitting and I can do this grudgingly if there was anything nice to say here, it would have been nice here.

But fear not, dear readers, there is nothing to like here. This is a lost cause, the film has absolutely nothing to be proud of. The actor’s performance was unbearable. The screenplay was worse. The direction was as if somebody was doing it for the thesis of a film college. The entire movie was based on CGI but it was bland and unimpressive. I am glad it did not stand out.

The 3-D effects were completely unnecessary as they made the whole film too dark and were applied at the last moment in the making of the movie. The art was okay in certain point owing to the fact that it was shamelessly copied from the original series. Costumes that did not copy the TV series in bursts were just ordinary. All action sequences were set to 50% slow motion. (I am not joking this time.

This is most likely due to some of the fighting being rendered with CGI. Argh. Didn’t he get what was the part of The Matrix Reloaded he should have comprehend?) The music sounded like an embarrassing film score; cheap, DUNH DUNH DUUUHHH, strings that sounded light combined with half the score.

The martial arts could be described as clumsy as well. Now, here’s where I feel Shymalan’s lack of experience working in the martial arts film genre led to bitter disappointment. One fundamental error, that of not knowing how to engage in the first phase of a fight, seemed almost inescapable for him. What they seemed to be doing was waiting around doing half the steps of the sword. The main characters were practically doing lots of katas the whole sequence of the movie, like in the tournament scene in Karate Kid III.

The good guys were probably so pumped up that they’d advance towards the required angles without waiting for the bad guys to turn up first. I, like many others, laughed at the teaser trailer only a few were able to blow out the actual candles as the whole anticipation had quite a show where both arms and legs wave around the most redundant things. The same feeling validates what everyone went through, which was throughout the whole movie being what was just so.

Furthermore, at this specific press screening, some Brainiac decided that a few of the martial arts practitioners must entertain the audience while waiting for the movie to start. A little boy, an older girl and man all appeared to be from one school and were there to amuse us I suppose. All of whom happened to be Asians who were really good and emphasized why Shymalan could have simply clicked his fingers and been swamped with pleasant English speaking Asian kids who could do the job. Hi? Hi Shyamalan. Are you with us? Or are you George Lucas?

And how does getting the job done go? Did I make mention of the acting being horrible. The answer to white casting has been in the following lines: “But we found the best people who are actors for that part and who are unfortunately white!” Most of the time, it is accepted with no offenses taken. Here however, that is an insult of the best kind, an insult worthy enough to make a movie about and have martial arts to it. Wow.

You dare to speak about my famiry? Jackson Rathbone pulls the same one “intense” look he always does in Twilight series, only this time, without the horrible looking haircut. Nicola Peltz is a better actress by a factor of two: she has two looks which are mostly represented by her poky lips. Noah Rathbone has also hit that odd stage of age where it is too immersive and active a face to be able to move around.

There was a lack of emotional but I am sure all this will be in the past when he finally hits the puberty stage. And Dev Patel? Tough luck. In this world of internets, his unformed talent would have shone brightly amongst the level of a 10 year old, but alas, he’s young to perform well without any guidance at all. He appeared in front of an audience as a very stiff, fragile and foolish person.

Which brings me to the casting of, in Shymalan’s words, ‘a Mediterranean kind of Arab and Indian world,’ a.k.a the Fire Nation. When he said that, I ridiculed him because it was so clearly terrible, and because he was quite obviously trying to appeal to the American stereotype of Muslims as terrorists. However, I honestly did not expect the casting to work the way it did. Every character with a speaking role in the Fire Nation was played by actors who were quite dark and looked like middle eastern people (which is more than what can be said about Cliff Curtis, who is Maorian, but plays Arabs on screen).

Every single face seen in a Fire Nation crowd shot was that of a dark skinned, middle eastern looking extra. The other nations had quite a mixture of Asian and white, with a few black characters in the periphery; however the Fire Nation was predominantly middle eastern. Mixing up characters who spoke or bore the features of one race with those of other nations served to blur their racial character. But the execution of the Fire Nation was like a thousand bullets fired to the gut, Islamic world bad. What was he thinking?

I don’t know if I should even try to write down the dreadful degradation that was presented on the screen instead of the cult series that several TV planners work on for more than a decade.

What I can say for Shyamalan is that he himself lades, as he wants to die with the series considering how many arcs of the half hour episodes he was able to fit otherwise. Naturally, with a two hour movie, that means that each of the twenty or so episodes of the first season gets about two minutes cut here.

Therefore the first 2/3 of the film is a ‘fast paced’ rush through the two minute episodes that could have been beautiful but failed to be so. Some adaptations are rather funny if not sad ( like the earth bender prison which was located in a metal ship in the series but is now a dirt floored stockade here.) But these scenes for the most part and quite simply are illegible to anybody who has not watched the TV series.

It is not until the final third of the movie when things start to look up as Shyamalan relinquished the grip on the episodes and started to join and cut the plot points together to make them better known as interpolation. However once we have got over the issues with the script, we have for ourselves the issues that plague the movie and will give it the esteem it deserves starting with the horrible horrible script and the most unnecessary cringe inducing narration. A hot mess does not begin to cover it.

As of now, the rating stands at a 0.0% rating on Rotten tomatoes. I have never seen a movie wearing that badge. I know that this rating will for sure go up in the next couple of days, however it is still very much indicative of the overall reaction. This film should not be viewed at all. Do not use your time. Do not use your resources. Spare this franchise the excruciating end it has been asking for. Avatar: The Last Airbender did not relish the idea of being a film. Let it remain a television series and retain its grace.

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