[Insert Clever Wordplay Including “Night” from Shyamalan and “Last” from Airbender]
I went and saw The Last Airbender with Kerri a couple of weeks ago, and boy, was it lousy.
I really like the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series on Nickelodeon. I hadn’t seen very much of it until this summer, but I always liked the snippets I caught here and there while I channel surfed. Thanks to Kerri’s parents having a DVR, I started watching the episodes more regularly this summer. Since we knew that I’d be living alone in San Francisco for the summer, Kerri got me the DVD sets of the cartoon’s first two seasons so I could have something to do in my downtime. I watched both seasons, found the third, watched it too, and considered myself a fan of the series.
I was pretty excited that a live-action movie for Avatar (…The Last Airbender) was coming out, but I don’t believe I was overly optimistic. I recognized that animation was a very good medium for the show, but I was curious to see what Hollywood could put out in a live-action version. So, when Kerri came out to visit me the weekend that the Last Airbender launched, I recommended that we catch a matinee. She accepted, and we went to the cool theaters inside the Westfield mall, only two or three blocks from my apartment in downtown SF.
I’ll be honest. The movie sucked from the beginning, but I remained optimistic that it could be redeemed. But it never was. It just got suckier and suckier. I’m really not sure what Shyamalan was going for in the movie. As an Avatar fan, I felt that the movie didn’t really appeal to me because Shyamalan changed so much, down to the roles of the characters themselves. However, I’m not enough of a zealot to claim that changing the characters is unforgivable, especially when the director is trying to make the movie appeal to a larger audience. But I really don’t see how Shyamalan’s changes could make the story appeal to a broader audience. I could imagine that those unfamiliar with the cartoon would really be confused by the movie.
Here’s a breakdown of different parts of the movie that contributed to the overall suckiness:
Actors: I actually liked the character that played Aang. He did a good job of capturing the playfulness and innocence of Aang. I also like the actor that played Iroh. That was about it. I really didn’t think that the actor portraying Zuko did a very good job; he seemed very one-dimensional to me. I would expect Zuko to have enough pride to avoid constantly clinching his fist and talking through gritted teeth. I was pretty indifferent about Katara and Sokka; the poor characters got in the way for me to even see the acting (more on that below). Somewhat ironically, most of the reviews I’ve read are pretty brutal on the actor that played Aang, and a few said that Dev Patel’s (Zuko) performance was the only redeeming factor of the movie.
Storyline: Wow. So bad. I can understand that a director (or somebody in movie production) would likely have to cut out a lot of material when moving from one medium to another–he might even have to cut out some pieces that are near and dear to fans. I get that. But Shyamalan included a lot of material that didn’t add to the story–material from later seasons or new material that he had written. In doing so, he had to cut out a lot more material than he would have had to otherwise. Additionally, the film was quite short, so some more material was left out. However, the combination of cutting out a lot of storyline from the series and including other material made the film feel really choppy, and the storyline never really got going. Quickly into the movie, after one public appearance of the Avatar, he apparently started inspiring the world to fight back against the Fire Nation, or so we’re told. But then nothing ever developed from that. Among all the suckiness, the storyline sucked the worst.
(Oh, and why would Shyamalan want the firebenders not to be able to create fire? It seems like it would be very difficult to advance your army if they needed to have live fire with them at all times…ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY’RE FIGHTING WATER AND EARTH BENDERS! Since the other nations are basically immersed in their own element, wouldn’t the fire nation have a HUGE disadvantage? Did Shyamalan just want them to have a little-man’s syndrome or something? I don’t get it.)
Characters: What made the cartoon series so great was the characters. They were all very real, somewhat deep, and very likable. Another huge whiff by Shyamalan. Sokka is constantly worried and speaking through a grimace. He really could have simply been left out of the movie since he contributes nothing. Katara was very weak. The cartoon Katara had a very strong personality and used it to drive the story much of the time. Movie Katara could also have been left out. I’ve already mentioned that Zuko was too one-dimensional. Iroh was less awful than the rest, but he wasn’t nearly as powerful of a personality as he should have been. One of the reasons that cartoon Iroh was such a great character is that he was a great military leader and powerful warrior on one hand, deeply philosophical and wise on another hand, but on yet a third hand, he was willing to be uncomfortably cheerful in order to try to support Zuko and show compassion. The storyline made the show unpleasant, but the characters should have still been able to carry the show, and Shyamalan failed again in that department.
Effects: Very early on, perhaps the first image the movie shows, is a sphere of water floating in the air. It reminded me of 1980s special effects. Is it Labyrinth that has a floating ball of viscous liquid? I don’t remember, but suffice it to say that the effects in Airbender were bad. Not only were they visually unimpressive, but they were very distracting. They were very poorly edited into the action sequences. The cartoon did a good job of making the elements seem like an extension of a person’s movements, but the movie made it seem like people had to do a cool dance, and then the element would do something special. Another fail.
Action: For what should is largely a martial-arts movie, the action and fight scenes were terrible. I often watch the background actors in movies and see them sort of fighting in a turn-based fight (“Ok, I did a kick, and now I’ll stand here while you punch me.”) but Airbender had the main subjects waiting to get hit in the same way. The bending seemed too staged, also. What I mean is that whenever a bender would attack, he would be the main focus of the action for the moment. It’s like time stopped for everybody else. It was almost laughable at parts because the characters had to do pretty elaborate martial-arts sequences in order to summon their bending, so their opponents would just stand and watch for several seconds while they waited to get hit.
So there it is. I really didn’t find anything redeemable about the movie. Like I indicated above, the movie didn’t have to be a live-action copy of the cartoon for me to enjoy it, but there were a lot of elements that could have translated well across the media. Basic items like characters and relationships should have been able to replicate on the big screen, right? For whatever reason, M. Night Shyamalan didn’t think so, or couldn’t do it.
Posted by Cole on July 18th, 2010 :: Filed under Tomfoolery
