Review of The Last Airbender (2010) by Trae K — 21 Apr 2014

Umm...WHAT was M. Night Shyamalan thinking? This movie was NOTHING like the fantastic cartoon show that, not only did I grew up watching as a child, but that it ALSO resembles so much like "The Lord Of The Rings" trilogy did.

And from the previews, it looked like M. Night would FINALLY redeem himself on this movie after his bad work on his most recent films way before this (with "Lady In The Water" I hated the MOST), but boy, did he make the BIGGEST mistake of his career.

Not only did he TRULY upset the fanboys of the cartoon show, but he also angered SO many non-fans and average moviegoers alike with an incredibly TWISTED and CONFUSING plot, weirdly FAST pace, horridly ATROCIOUS dialogue, unconvincingly BAD acting, very BORING action/fight sequences, and an overall sense of LAZY and UN-ENTERTAINING spectacle (especially with the film being so POINTLESSLY converted into 3D in post-production).

Let me ask this major question: whom, on the VERY face of the planet, gave M. Night the FULL right to, not only direct, but WRITE the screenplay ALL BY HIMSELF for this film? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?! This man has LOST it completely, and this movie SHOWS! It only seemed like M.

Night just did NOT care for the cartoon show at ALL, and I felt that he just wanted to make his OWN version of it without EVER thinking about how the audience reactions will be prior to making this film.

Excuse me, sir, but...it is NOT a good idea to cram the MAJORITY of a 20-episode first season into an incredibly SHORT 1-hour-and-40-minute movie like this and make it so HORRENDOUSLY un-watchable! When turning a television show into a film adaptation that's only based on one season, a director/scriptwriter needs to be VERY careful on what to do and how to make it RIGHT, especially on deciding what major parts should be PUT into and what other parts should be CUT out of from any of the episodes due to the film's possible runtime; the movie has to be LONG and GOOD enough in order to win over and satisfy the target audience.

A perfect example like this is how Peter Jackson adapted "The Lord Of The Rings" trilogy onto the big screen: not only did he keep all the major parts from the books and into the films at a length of 3 hours each, but he ALSO made Extended Cuts for all 3 films that featured a LOT of cut-out scenes (running at about 30-40 minutes total in each film) that added MUCH more depth and detail into the story; let's also not forget that all 3 of those films have a great story, outstanding cast, beautiful music score, amazing visual effects, entertaining action sequences, and a joyful sense of epic spectacle overall (especially with "The Fellowship Of The Ring" having a FANTASTIC starting prologue that began the whole trilogy's storyline).

"The Last Airbender," on the other hand, is the exact OPPOSITE of that. Considering that he likes to put in twists in his films, M. Night took the source material that made the cartoon show so amazingly epic and twisted it so badly in this film and in his screenplay that: 1) he made the story so STUPIDLY hard for newcomers to follow; 2) he replaced all of the GENIUS dialogue from the show with rather AWKWARD dialogue (some of the characters' names are even PRONOUNCED wrong too, like saying 'Ung' instead of 'Aang' and saying 'Soaka' instead of 'Sokka'); and 3) he can't fully train his actors well enough anymore that they instead act like MENTAL PATIENTS.

M. Night, what has ever happened to you throughout the years? Your earlier films ("Signs," "The Sixth Sense," and "The Village" all being my most favorites overall) showed us how good you were on how to make intriguingly suspenseful brain-thinking-types-of-movies back at the time, but today it only seems like you just don't care on what to do anymore and you would rather THROW all of that talent away JUST to be greedy for more MONEY now.

Bastard. "The Last Airbender" is, without a doubt, a DISASTROUS film to EVER watch that's not even worth the price of a rental, and it ABSOLUTELY was the perfect contender to win all of the Razzie awards it was nominated for: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Mis-Use of 3D.

However, this movie is NOT the #1 most worst movie I've ever seen in my book; I've actually seen WAY worse films than this (looking at you, "Scott Pilgrim" and "The Hangover"), but "The Last Airbender" still deserves its place among the worst films ever made and is a disgrace to both the cartoon show and film history.

Although, the ONLY things I liked in this movie were: the decent visuals/cinematography, and the musical score by James Newton Howard, but even THAT won't make me give this film a higher rating. My last thoughts overall: this movie, NO DOUBT, deserves a REBOOT with a TRUE cast and crew who really knows how to make an epic film work and how to draw in new audience members, and I'm also sorry to say that M.

Night Shyamalan STILL doesn't reach the same directing levels as Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Bryan Singer, J.J. Abrams, David Fincher, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Zack Snyder do.