The Last Airbender is a tedious experience. Not only because of what’s onscreen, but also what it represents. It embodies everything wrong with summer blockbusters. It’s pandering beyond belief and falls into sloppy storytelling 101. It’s 100 minutes of being talked down to and being slapped in the face. The most saddening fact, it comes from M. Night Shyamalan. Shyamalan has become someone you either hate or love. I’ve been on the latter side for quite some time now and with this, I’m starting to lose hope.
In this (un) magical world there are benders. A bender, is someone who can control one of the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. The power you have depends upon what nation you’re from, but only one is able to control all four elements. That one’s name is referred to as: The Avatar. One appears every 100 years and this time around, it’s a young boy by the name of Aang (Noah Ringer). Similar to most heroes, he doesn’t initially accept his new found destiny. After escaping his home, he ends up through a freak accident of some sort, being frozen for a total of 100 years. He’s awoken by two water bending siblings Katara (Nicole Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone). Now awoken, Aang realizes how much his world has changed. The fire nation has become a domination and is raging war searching for the Avatar. Aang now finally realizes his true calling and understands how important he is. But to fulfill his destiny, he must first be able to master all four elements.
If you’re confused by any of the details here, don’t worry. The film goes out of its way to explain everything around every five minutes. It’s quite apparent even by the opening text/hammy narration that the whole film will be spelled out for you. Instead of showing you actions and character motivations subtlety, there will instead be an excruciating exposition heavy voice-over to let you know. It’s as if Shyamalan doesn’t have enough trust in you to figure out pretty standard points for ourselves.
The script is just a mess beyond reasoning. It’s shocking how the narrative is devoid of cohesiveness. It’s baffling that the dialog is so flat and how every other line is even more painful exposition. The whole script comes off as cliff notes for the rich world we should have gotten. There’s a few nice small touches here and there, but the world itself is mostly half-baked. The rules are completely muddled. If the film perhaps spent a little more time in exploring its surroundings the universe could have been a bit more than forgettable. But in all honesty, if the length was expanded by any amount of time, the film would most likely become even more unbearable to withstand. The pacing is sluggish beyond belief. For a film around roughly, 100 minutes, its a chore– similarly to Jonah Hex.
The action is mostly standard. There’s a few moments that work where Shyamalan lets the action play out in long takes and wide shots. The problem mostly lies with the script given to the young actors and the shoddy CG work done by ILM. I’m not gonna bag on the young actors here. Their performances are the kid performances we all mostly speak badly of, but here that’s because they’re burdened with delivering hammy line after hammy line. The action isn’t particularly exciting because the actors can’t sell it and nearly every action beat is plagued by some unfinished looking CG shots. Nothing ever looks quite right and it’s a total distraction.
Many will question whether or not this is the type of bad film that you can enjoy on a comedic level. In some ways it is. There’s a few laughs to be had a la Flash Gordon-style, but it still remains a dull experience lacking any sense of excitement. If it’s got anything going for it, it’s that M. Night Shyamalan still has an eye for framing. Plenty of shots standout and are, at times, quite beautiful. Besides that, it’s just another crushing disappointment for Shyamalan fans– including myself.