Film Review with Robert Mann – The Last Airbender

14th August 2010

The Last Airbender 3D **
The Last Airbender 2D **

Already being touted as the worst movie of writer, director and producer M. Night Shyamalan’s somewhat less then illustrious (if you discount his brilliant breakout features The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) career, The Last Airbender arrives in UK cinemas preceded by some of the year’s worst reviews from across the pond. Clearly, the film that was supposed to see Shyamalan return to form (wait, wasn’t that also the case with The Happening?) has only further damaged his already fragile reputation rather than see him return to greatness. The negative fallout surrounding The Last Airbender, even prior to its release, however, is not entirely the fault of Shyamalan’s filmmaking abilities (or lack thereof if you fall into the Shyamalan hating camp). There has been much controversy surrounding the casting of Caucasian actors in roles intended for Asians and understandably so, especially given that the roles have been cast with actors who, with the possible exception of Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel, have less than stellar track records to date and that the title role of the Avatar (the full title of the animated series upon which the film is based is Avatar: The Last Airbender but the Avatar part had to be dropped for the film because the studio would have been sued by James Cameron had it remained) hasn’t even gone to an actor but rather a newcomer whose experience in martial arts won him the role off the back of a homemade DVD showing off his black belt standard tae kwon do moves. There has also been something of a backlash over the decision by the studio to convert the film to 3D in post production, a measure made merely so that they can charge more to see it rather than because the film was designed to be in 3D, even though the filmmakers claimed that plenty of sequences lent themselves particularly well to 3D and that they had sufficient time to convert the film properly. But, is the film really as bad as many critics are making it out to be? After all, many critics trash films because they fail artistically, seemingly ignorant of the fact that some movies are meant to be entertainment not art. For once, however, I have to say that the majority of critics are spot on with their scathing comments.

The world is divided into four kingdoms, each represented by the element they harness, and peace has lasted throughout the realms of Water, Air, Earth, and Fire under the supervision of the Avatar, a link to the spirit world and the only being capable of mastering the use of all four elements. When young Avatar Aang (Noah Ringer) disappears, the Fire Nation launches an attack to eradicate all members of the Air Nomads to prevent interference in their future plans for world domination. 100 years pass and current Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis) continues to conquer and imprison anyone with elemental ‘bending’ abilities in the Earth and Water Kingdoms, while siblings Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) from a Southern Water Tribe find a mysterious boy trapped beneath the ice outside their village. Upon rescuing him, he reveals himself to be Aang, Avatar and last of the Air Nomads. Swearing to protect the Avatar, Katara and Sokka journey with him to the Northern Water Kingdom in his quest to master ‘waterbending’ with the help of Princess Yue (Seychelle Gabriel) and eventually fulfil his destiny of once again restoring peace to the world. But as they inch nearer to their goal, the group must evade Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), the exiled son of Lord Ozai who cannot return home until he has captured the Avatar, Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi), the Fire Nation’s military leader, and the tyrannical onslaught of the evil Fire Lord himself.

If there is one thing in The Last Airbender that doesn’t disappoint it is the visuals. The visual effects on display here truly are eye-popping – we wouldn’t expect anything less than from the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic – and the film is frequently quite beautiful to look at, many of the action sequences looking quite amazing. Looks, however, can be deceiving. You see, the film does look great but M. Night Shyamalan’s ineptitude in this particular kind of filmmaking hampers most of the action sequences, making them barely passable rather than truly exciting like they should be. Sure, younger viewers – who are the target audience really – may get some enjoyment out of them but anyone else will feel completely underwhelmed, particularly by the ‘spectacular’ and ‘epic’ siege at the end which is missing one crucial ingredient – thrills. Despite having the potential to be an exciting action packed movie, the film will instead come across as one big bore to anyone who appreciates good action. What’s more, the 3D conversion is absolutely pathetic. For much of the duration, it doesn’t actually make any difference whether or not you where the 3D glasses, the 3D doing little more than adding a very slight layering effect and applying a polish to some of the visuals, no real depth even being created and nothing even coming close to coming out of the screen – both the 3D trailer that actually featured good 3D effects and the TV advert promising stuff coming out of the screen are clearly a big con. If your cinema is showing the 2D version opt for that instead because the 3D version is just a big rip off. This, however, is not the real failing of the film. Combined with the mediocre action sequences, what really lets the film down is the writing which sees Shyamalan reaching a whole new low. It really is hard to believe that this is the same guy who made great movies like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable as what he delivers here is simply abysmal. The plotting is weak and often rather incoherent (particularly to those unfamiliar with the show upon which the film is based), character development amounts to little more than characters introducing themselves, plot exposition is presented in the tired forms of voiceover narration and scrolling text at the start of the film, humour often emerges clearly unintentionally, and the dialogue is clunky and obvious. The acting is also poor although this is likely as much due to the awful dialogue that actors have to speak as anything to do with their acting ability. The only half decent turns come from Dev Patel, who proves suitably sinister, and Nicola Peltz, who is quite adorable, but even they aren’t much to speak of. As for the title role, Noah Ringer certainly looks the part and masterfully handles himself in the action sequences but his lack of acting experience is clear from the start. Overall, The Last Airbender is very much a case of all flash and no substance. It looks great and even boasts a fantastic music score by James Newton Howard but what Shyamalan has created here is simply not deserving of either. Shyamalan has stated that this is the first part of a planned trilogy – this film being subtitled Book One: Water – and there is definitely potential for sequels…provided that Shyamalan has no involvement in them. Otherwise, this would be better off being the last Last Airbender.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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