MyRating: YY1/2Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis, Shaun Toub, Seychelle Gabriel
MPAA: Rated PG for fantasy action violence
When Aang (Ringer) is being found, after 100 years of disappearance, by siblings from a Southern Water Tribe, Katara (Peltz) and Sokka (Rathbone), the world that is in chaos seems to finally find a hope. Aang is the Avatar, the last from Air Nomads, who is the only one that can keep the four element kingdoms (Water, Air, Earth and Fire) in harmony. As the Avatar, he also has the capability to use and "bend" all the four elements. So, when he disappeared, so was the peace, as the Fire Nation attacks and tries to conquer the other 3 kingdoms to gain domination of the world. Fire Lord Ozai (Curtis), the leader from the Fire Nation, also imprisons anyone who has elemental "bending" abilities. To restore the world peace, Aang, accompanied by Katara and Sokka, has to take a journey to the Northern Water Kingdom to master "Waterbending". But it will not become an easy task for them, as they have to face with the Fire Lord and his armies, lead by Commander Zhao (Mandvi). Not only that, they also have to face Prince Zuko (Patel), the exiled son of Lord Ozai, who has big ambition to catch Aang and dominate his abilities, in order to prove himself to his country that he has the quality to become a leader.
When I first heard that Avatar: The Last Airbender, the popular three seasons Nickelodeon animated TV series, will be adapted into live action movie by M. Night Shyamalan, I have a big doubt in my mind and already decided at once that the result will be a terrible movie. I somehow prejudged that his adaption will become a strange one, in a bad way. I loved The Sixth Sense, as it was a brilliant movie and one of my most favorite movies of all time. But since his first hit, Shyamalan's screenwriting and directing performance seemed to be gradually deteriorated, and ended up making a movie like Lady in the Water, one of the worst and pointless movies of all time. If I may draw a line, Shyamalan started excellence as a post-graduate student with The Sixth Sense, but somehow ended up miserably as a kindergarten pupil with Lady in the Water. Lady was just so bad and ridiculous, that made me losing almost all my trust towards Shyamalan as a good filmmaker. That was why I never bought the hype of The Last Airbender. It never really provoked my interest to see this movie. Of course I finally watched it though, just for the sake of writing the review, and to witness how bad it would be, as almost all the critics have trashed the movie. When I went to see it, I even have prepared to hate it and give a "BOO... (zero star)" rating. I have as well thought of some critical words to be written in my review towards this movie and Shyamalan. What this movie has to do was just to prove that it was actually that super-bad and unwatchable at all.
So, how bad was it? I hate when I have to come into this point. Yes, this movie was not a 'good' movie, if we compare it with other great fantasy movies. But it was not that bad either. Indeed, it was not as bad as I thought and expected it to be. It has the entertaining values as a movie, which I still could enjoy, surprisingly! At least, I was not feeling sleepy or totally boring while watching it, as many times I did when I really hated watching a movie.
I never watched the Avatar TV series or read its comic books. That was why the racial issue in selecting the casts by Shyamalan was not becoming a big issue for me while watching it (the casts should have been Asian people as per the original story, instead of mostly Caucasian in the movie). That was also why I didn't have any expectations on how the movie should be or tried to compare it with the original series, since I came into the theater with a very low expectation. However, I will tell you though, the weaknesses of this movie. First, the story written and direction by Shyamalan was an average one, nothing really stand out as compare to a good fantasy movie. The climax of the movie also not very well done. Second, the actings were bad, especially Jackson Rathbone, who has such a wooden expression. His blank face made his character becoming an annoyance. Noah Ringer's acting as Aang was a bit robotic too, especially if people compare him to the original character of Aang, who indeed is funny. Third, the fighting scenes were also looked robotic, as if every move was choreographed in such a way that 'after you push forward, then I will fall behind' or 'before I attack, you should not defend'. This made the fighting scenes did not flow smoothly, not spontaneous, and looked rather clumsy. Shyamalan was just not very good in handling action sequences.
Now, the positive sides. The special effects, even though not great, somehow looked cool. It was quite fun to see how Aang, even some of the moves may look clumsy, used the air and water elements around him to fight the enemies and made them scattered and flied away. From the story point of view, it 'has' a story and it was watchable. I don't think this movie was really-really that bad, as many people said. Nor it was a terrible nightmare, as many people thought. And as a PG rating movie, most kids will surely like this. I didn't like it that much, but I didn't hate it either. For me, this is a mediocre-executed movie, that again, unplanned, I still could sit and enjoy it for the way it was.
The Last Airbender and Shyamalan may possibly get Razzie nominations next year just because of the hype of 'the worst movie of the year' that it has already gathered from the critics. It seems to be already stamped in the face. And for that, only fate will tell. (MJ)
