Fantastic visuals. That’s the only positive thing I saw in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender movie. I was one of the handful few who watched it on its first day which happened to fall on a weekday. No squealing kids. Just tired adults.
By the way, this is just Book One: Water Tribe. So don’t expect the cool blind earth/metal bender Toph to be there.
Now the bad news. 
For Airbender fans who followed the series on Nickelodeon channel, Shyamalan’s movie would prove to be a big disappointment. I am not part of the Airbender cult. But I have seen the series on a 2-week DVD marathon and I could tell the huge difference the movie has from the original animated series. Shyamalan has just massacred the Airbender characters you would no longer be able to recognize them.
The characters in the movie delivered their lines in what seemed to be a monotone adding gloom to an already glum water tribe climate. You could feel the I-see-dead-people undertone creeping from beneath your seat. Aang (Noah Ringer) and Sokka (Jackson Rathborne) were supposed to be carefree lads who also happened to have a sense of mission in life. But Shyamalan’s melancholic take on these two prevailed. There was a world war. Why would he make a happy-go-lucky Aang? Let the Avatar-kid carry the burden together with the rest of the gang. The only consistent person in the movie was the angry jerk named “Prince Zuko” played by Dev Patel.
And for some strange reason, the characters seemed to represent different races and colors – the earth-benders were Chinese, the fire-benders Indians, the airbenders were probably from Dalai Lama’s clan and the water tribe was plainly a white country. The character differences were so pronounced you’d probably wonder why Shyamalan did such a thing. Or maybe it was just something his critics were imagining while mixing irvingia gabonensis into their drinks.
Overall, the Last Airbender movie has a poorly-written script. I have been short-changed like the rest who trooped to the cinemas to have a first look. I want my money back. If its creators would like to make this a successful movie franchise, they should learn from what others did to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Narnia or even the cheesy Twilight. Stay true to the original; it pays great dividends and much love in the end.
Now, it gives me more reason not to watch it. It’s better not. Thanks for sharing this.
I always like the way you ostracize a film, my friend. I agree with you. If the creators did massacre the film, then there is no way I would insist myself watching it. Yeah, if not ‘loyal’ to the original concept, at least stay as close to it and never veer away from what made the people loved about it. Instead of getting good reviews–the film suffered a dismal blow.
Curiously, don’t you think that with all these ‘negative’ reviews–it will intrigue even more the moviegoers and they’d still troop to watch it? What do you think?
I’m don’t watch the cartoon series, but I was just as disappointed. It wasn’t only because the movie deviated from the original story, but because it was terribly made. M. Night wasn’t able to tell the story well. He wasn’t able to capture the real essence of the story. His casting was off, and not because of their races, but because they didn’t look the part. They didn’t deliver believable portrayals of their characters. I think M. Night totally missed the point. And his slow pacing, abrupt cutting of the scenes, pointless narration, unnecessary lingering on some moments, lethargic action battle scenes (although some action scenes were good) and poor cast collectively contribute to its failure as a movie adaption of would have been a great epic movie in the league of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.