O Último Mestre do Ar

I have been a fan of the series for a long time and ever since I heard that there was going to be a live action version, I was looking forward to it. I live in Europe so I had to wait till last weekend to see it. I did read all the bad reviews on IMDb, but I thought it's probably just people dissing the movie because they are upset over the casting. But oh my god was I wrong! This movie is the an absolute disgrace to the series. Really, it's a disgrace to professional film making! And it's not even the acting or the casting that are bad. It's the writing and directing all the way. Yes, the acting was bad, too, but I don't think it's really any of the actors fault. Every single actor had at least one moment that showed that they had great potential that the director failed to bring out - even Noah Ringer really sounded like Aang sometimes. They just needed someone directing them... About the screenplay: I don't know what Mr. Shyamalan thought while writing that screenplay. It was like watching random scenes from the first season of the cartoon with no connection and no seg way. The little dialog the movie did have was stiff and unnatural. There was no character development. A story like this needs to be told in an epic way, not in what seems like a theater student mash up! Where did all the budget go? Another thing that was wrong with the movie: The music! The music was horrible, a mere shadow of what we heard in the cartoon. How can the same person who composed the music for The Dark Knight do such a horrible job on another movie. There was no recognizable theme at all! Why does Shyamalan hire his friend who clearly didn't care for the movie or try hard, when he could have just hired the cartoons composer. The music from the cartoon was perfect and more than worthy of a big Hollywood production. There is much more I could say about this movie but I think it amounts all to the same thing: M. Night Shyamalan ruined this movie, and that saddens me greatly. I wish he had cared, but the end product proves he didn't.

"The Last Airbender", directed by M. Night Shyamalan is tortuously lethargic, uninvited, abysmal, and uniformly atrocious (in every aspect). And that's me being nice! Based on Nickelodeon's beloved animated series (to which I am only vaguely familiar and thus can't compare) is set i a world in which the population is divided amid the four elements (Earth, Wind, Water and Fire) and some skilled practitioners whom can "bend" these elements to their will. Since the elements are naturally at odds with each other, an overall controller is needed to maintain order among the kingdom. This role is played by the Avatar, who can manipulate all the elements and thus can keep balance and peace amongst the tribes. Only problem is this Avatar has gone missing for 100 hundred years. "The Last Airbender" follows a brother and sister from the Water Tribe, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), who discover a 12-year-old monk-child from the Air tribe frozen in a block of ice and his gigantic furry steed (that resembles the luck dragon in "The Never Ending Story").His name is Aang (Noah Ringer), and he, of course is the missing Avatar. Now freed, he finds his home air tribe are all dead and the rest of the world in turmoil. All at the hands of the tyranny of the dreaded Fire Nation. Aang, who never wanted to be the Avatar in the first place (thus why he ran away) must step up, lead a resistance and bring peace back to the Kingdom. However, he must first learn how to control the elements other than air (was imprisoned by an ice storm before he could train). The Fire nation led by Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis) wants none of this of course and seeks to capture and subdue Aang (they would just kill him but he'd just get reincarnated). Rounding out the plot is Ozai's son, Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), living in exile with his uncle Iroh (Shaun Toub), who also wants to capture Aang and bring him back to his father to win his honor back. Sound like a lot? It is, but surprisingly not as convoluted as it sounds. The scope of the plot, which attempts at mysticism, politics, religion and a whole obvious Jesus angle isn't the problem. Its how the story is told that makes it unbearable. It throws a lot at you with no effect. It fails definition and lacks resonance. Everything is rushed. Characters and story elements are given no development. Take the Fire Nation for example. We are told they are scourge of the once unified kingdom but we arn't shown this. They travel the globe in their ominous, menacing, iron ships and have a mightier than though attitude but all in all nothing that establishes their evil-ness; albeit a later incident with a glowing pond guppy. Because of this we have nothing at stake, no reason to root for the good guys to triumph. Another example would be a big part of Aang's journey. Which involves him letting go of his anger towards the genocide of his people (a scene depicting said genocide would have helped sell the fire nation's douchey-ness) but we never see him get angry enough to make "letting go" have meaning. Void-ness of emotional moments are what really plague this film. I would blame this on the script but the performances are what make it not work. Every actor in this film (minus Shaun Toub) delivers dialogue as if they were reading it for the very first time. Not one thing anyone says carries any weight, none of it resonates emotionally. To say the actors suffer from wooden acting would be insult an to wood. It seem Shyamalan seemed much more interested in the visuals than the narrative (or the dialogue, which is shoddy at best). M. Night manages a few striking images, most of them involving otherworldly landscapes and ornate set design. There are strong special effects and action sequences which are fluid and vivid. Particularly with the fights involving element- manipulation. Winds gusts slamming people around like rag dolls, earth barricades, globs or walls of water and so on are eye popping. The effects are top notch. The hand-to-hand, Kung-Fu fight sequences are well choreographed as well, but a bit too extraneous. Should also mention that this movie is available in 3D and lets just say it's a wasted element (pun intended), an unnecessary afterthought. It wrecks whatever visual grace that might have been (and will give you a massive headache). Though, relatively successful in cinematic aspects Shyamalan, overall fails to capture the sense of adventure. There is a signs of a beautiful journey but it ultimately falls flat. Underwhelming and joyless Avatar: The Last Airbender is sure the be the final nail in the coffin of M. Night Shymalans stunted career. M. Night Shyamalan: Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me four times? "The Sixth Sense" was clearly a fluke.

I remember watching this movie back when it first came out and I didn't think it was that bad. I just finished watching the cartoon series on Netflix and I figured I would re-watch this to wrap it all up. Now I wish I hadn't watched it. It's NOTHING like the show. I wonder if the people who worked on this movie even saw the show. Stay away from this movie. It's so bad that it actually hurts to watch it.

I watched this reluctantly for the first time recently to see if it was bad as I had heard and I was wrong, it was even worse than I could have imagined. I was unable to even finish the movie. I wish I could rate it lower. I understand that adaptations are difficult to reflect in the same light as the original content but the direction style, casting, writing, acting, and animation of this movie was lazy, disrespectful, and devalued the core ideals of the series. The movie proves painful to watch. I grew up watching the series and still now as an adult I am still constantly in awe of how wonderful of a show it is. So I wholeheartedly recommend to forget you even laid eyes on this movie and go watch the series in all it's glory.

The Last Airbender (2010)

1/2 (out of 4)

After being freed from an iceberg, Aang (Noah Ringer), a long lost Avatar who is the only one able to bend the four elements, finds himself doing battle against the Fire Nation who who attempting to take over all three Nations (Air, Water, Earth). M. Night Shyamalan's THE LAST AIRBENDER is based on the very popular television show, which is something I've never seen so I pretty much walked into this not knowing what to expect from the story. I'll admit by the ten-minute mark I was pretty much lost in regards to the story and each passing minute I found myself growing even more confused. I then had to do something I never do, which was stop the movie and call someone familiar with the TV series and this film to try and find out what the heck was supposed to be going on. I painfully sat through the rest of the movie and afterwards I started to read other reviews and I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one who couldn't make any sense out of this material. I will say that I think Shyamalan has gotten some pretty bad beatings over his recent films, which I think were unfair but there's no doubt that he deserves the majority of the blame here, although I think a very strong argument could be made that those who hired him should be on fans hit list more than Shyamalan. The biggest fault of his was the screenplay, which simply doesn't make any sense as the story is always jumping from one place to another and none it ever seems connected. From what I've gathered he was jumping around so many parts of the show that unless you're familiar with it you weren't going to know what's going on here. Even worse are the actors who are all extremely bad and come off even worse when they have to say the bad dialogue. I don't like to attack child actors so I won't mention any of them by name but what were the producers thinking when they agreed to cast them? Surely there were more talented people out in Hollywood. The special effects are all poor, the action badly directed and even worse is that there's simply nothing here to care about. Some nice cinematography is about the only thing going for this turkey, which is every bit the misfire its reputation would have you believe.