Review of The Last Airbender (2010) by Arthur O — 24 Mar 2014

Shyamalan made some fatal mistakes in this movie:

0) He blatantly and egregiously failed to be faithful to the source material.

1) Regardless of whether he truly was doing "color-blind" casting of the characters as he said, by replacing dark-skinned characters with white actors Shyamalan did what so many criticize Hollywood in general for doing - but in Shyamalan's case it was so blatant, it was egregious. As a director making movies in America for over a decade, Shyamalan had no excuse for ignorance. Same goes for all of the other characters whose races he deliberately changed. There are plenty of talented actors of color. The fact was that he just didn't care enough to seek them out.

2) Regardless of whether Shyamalan was trying to make the names authentic, the show's creators had created the names they wanted for the characters. Can you honestly believe that Shyamalan consulted Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko on their opinions about changing the pronunciation of Sokka, Aang, Iroh, and Agni Kai? Or, if he even did, that he cared about their opinions. My guess is that Shyamalan was brought because Nickelodeon wanted the show to have a director with an ethnically diverse background, so that he could provide more insights on how to create a very ethnically rich and diverse world. They didn't hire him to "improve" the world.

3) Regardless of whether Shyamalan was trying to make the bending more "realistic" or was just limited in his budget, the bending in the movie was pathetically painful to watch. (I frankly find this excuse hard to believe given that he was working with $150M and 108 minutes, while the movie Avatar had around $250 and 162 minutes) Shyamalan had $150 million to work with. Yes, he was building a complex world, and, yes, the scenery and costumes were beautiful - but the bending was just terrible. The earth-bender fight was pathetic, and the water-bending was just bad, even from the trailer. Which goes to the next problem:

4) The fights were constantly in slow motion tracking shots, and that detracted from the fun when they were used in every single fight. With regards to the stunts, why not age the characters, if you're having trouble finding child actors who can fit the role? Sure, they'll be a 18-22, instead of 10-15, but that's not a big deal, compared to acting experience and fight scene realism.

5) Why change how the fire element works? How does this help the story? It didn't seem to affect the plot in any way.

6) Although Shyamalan had a lot of ground to cover, he didn't need to shove so much backstory into exposition. There were much better ways of doing it, and there was no reason not to make the movie longer, other than that Shyamalan didn't feel comfortable with it.

7) And why was the camera-work so terrible? Shyamalan has a lot of problem with cinematography, and, like in The Village, The Last Airbender was terrible as well. There were too many cut-aways, too many close shots, and it was just distracting.

8) The dialogue felt stilted in a couple places and have been better, but this is more of a nitpick.?