THE LAST AIRBINDER

[Koyuki]

I finally had a chance to sit through this last night... I was really, really wanting to be able to like the flick (I liked the animated version and have watched the series three or four times), but it plays like a film student's class project... and not by one of the kids at the head of the class, either.

The task at hand was to condense some 13 hours of a tv season story down to a two hour movie, not much different than reducing a Harry Potter book, or compiling an anime movie from series footage. Most writers would figure out how to weave the best ideas and themes into a coherent story that approximates the source work. Unfortunately, Shyamalan instead simply tries to film highlight scenes from the animation, and then splice them together. The result is an extremely disjointed story, lacking in rhythm and flow, skittering across the story like a stone skipping across water (reminded me of when I saw the "Lord of the Rings" stage musical - same problem, same result), or perhaps an extended 'Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer..." segment. 3/4 of the spoken lines aren't dialogue at all, but merely plot exposition points - I've seen stand-up comedy routines with better setups, payoffs, and flow. If the exposition lines had at least been well written, they might have gone over better, but MNS is making George Lucas's dialogue sound like Shakespeare.

Compounding the problem was the visuals of the film. The costuming, sets, CGI, etc were all off to a good start, designwise, but much of the film is shot in nighttime settings, and the editors decided to color shift everything to the point of murkiness (plus going with the too-fake orange and blue monochrome color scheme that's been overtaking Hollywood lately). At least I saw it in 2D - the loss of brightness inherent in current 3D technology would have made the darkness even worse.

As for the action, in the animated version each movement of the bender influenced the element, a direct cause and effect was visible. In the movie, it's more of a spellcasting sequence, with several moves happening, then the element reacting. The disconnect between the two tended to water down the believability of the bending, plus there wasn't the casual use of airbending that was a constant for the animated Aang.

There was a DVD extra with the third season of the series that featured MNS and the producers talking about the live action project - MNS had talked of watching the series with his children, and it seemed like he 'got' the story. However, from what's on screen, he obviously didn't get it, and it seems that MA action is not something he has figured out how to film. Wonder if they could get Stephen Chow to take the next movie...?

I'll let others speculate about the children's acting abilities. The kids weren't given a fighting chance to win this one, so I'll give them a pass for now. As for racebending, that was always a non-starter for me - the story doesn't take place on Earth, so trying to match Earth races to Bender tribes seems futile. Sure, Sokka and Kitara look vaguely Native American, but last I checked, there weren't any Inuit villages at the South Pole of this planet. Besides, everyone seems to be able to pass for all the other tribes while hiding/spying in the tv show, so they must not look too different from each other.

Upshot - If you are an Airbender completist, rent the movie (from a Redbox, if possible) and watch it - - once. Don't bother trying to get anyone to watch it with you, they won't thank you for it later.

[Votan]

I greatly enjoyed the series, but the movie was a rather large disappointment. The martial arts were unfocused and comically overdone, and the bending that would result from them was both disjointed and miniscule in comparison to what could be done on the show with mere gestures. That's not even touching the acting...

[Noelle Shadow Kick]

The martial arts in the cartoon were far better than the film. Sounds odd, but it's very true. The cartoon had clever and well-animated action scenes, whereas the film had a lot of silly looking gestures that resulted in minimal bending. Shyamalan said that he liked kung fu movies and was excited to make one......but oh my he did not succeed. It's a shame but the film had bad acting, incoherent storytelling, and disappointing action. Hopefully it doesn't ruin the name of the cartoon.