The Last Airbender (2010)

This week we take a look at another film adaptation of an originally animated property, one that has admittedly been covered before by more experienced critics, and one that is often cited as one of the worst adaptations of all time; The Last Airbender. The film that may well be eternally considered the nadir of M. Night Shyamalan's career, at least, I'd hope so.

Possible spoilers beyond here.

In the world of the story, there are people called “benders”, who can wield one of the philosophical elements. They are divided into nations based on the powers they wield, wind, fire, earth, and water.

The Fire Nation is waging a war of conquest against the entire rest of the world, who are seemingly helpless to stop their advance. Only one person can save them, The Avatar, whose duty it is to ensure the world remains in balance, but they have not been seen in a century. Entire Katara and Sokka, two siblings who find a boy frozen inside a block of ice. The boy in question is named Aang, and he is the world's missing Avatar and the titular Last Airbender. Now the three of them must embark on a journey to undo everything the Fire Nation has done in the last one hundred years.

Thus begins the story of The Last Airbender.

Okay, you all know that this isn't going to be a positive review, so let's just get started.

The first thing that must be mentioned is the acting, it's kinda terrible, although I'm not entirely sure if that is the fault of the actors, or the direction they were given. Dialogue is often stilted and monotone, conveying very little emotion or energy. On top of this the actors' body language is withdrawn, and uncertain about how they are supposed to be standing or moving. It creates an impression of the actors being uncomfortable in their roles, and not committing to the performance that they are supposed to be giving.

The reason I bring up direction in this context, is that we have already seen evidence that Shymalan likes to keep the dialogue subdued almost to the point of blandness. We have seen better actors, such as Mark Whalburg and Bruce Willis, struggle to bring quietly mumble their way through the dialogue-heavy portions of The Happening, and The Sixth Sense. So it's not a large jump to assume that such things are a staple of Shymalan's directorial style, and may be a little too demanding for younger, inexperienced actors.

Whatever the reason, the result is characters that are lifeless, and thus difficult to engage with.

The script itself doesn't help either; as whilst the delivery may be dry, the actors aren't exactly given much to work with. A lot of it is basically exposition, and exposition that is haphazardly strung together in an attempt to include all the world building within the limited time-frame of the film. Not to mention it appears amateurish in general; for example, during the opening voice-over, the word “food” is used twice with the same sentence, making the line come across as awkward and clunky.

Also, the amount of exposition in the dialogue makes the film feel rushed, as though we are simply rushing from one set-piece to the next. Although, I suppose that is only natural, considering that they have an entire season's worth of content to get through.

The action is not very good either, the film fails to make the most of any sort of effects (whether practical or CGI) in order to make the character's abilities awe-inspiring. The most famous example of this is the prison scene, where it apparently takes several earthbenders to launch a single rock. Not exactly an impressive showing, especially during such a climatic scene.

Do not expect the actual choreography to make amends for the lacklustre effects. Much like the rest of the physical acting, it looks stiff, and strained. Which is not helped by the camera work, which sometimes fails to capture the action properly, or even captures it from the wrong angle. This makes it hard to see what is actually happening, or even create the wrong impression about what is happening, leading to misunderstanding.

Whilst we're on the subject of action, why does Katara fare so badly in her fight against Zuko, when she was so much more impressive in the original? Maybe I am being unfair in comparing it directly to the animated show, but it ties in to the idea of the action being lacklustre. It's almost like they didn't want exciting action scenes.

I've praised other films for having clean action, and this is why. When the action is not clean, and is a blurry mess, this is what happens. You end up with a scene that looks unappealing, and puts the onus on the audience to make sense of it; and not in the manner of unearthing some deep meaning, but just to add some structure to things.

So I like to say something positive in every film I look at, no matter how bad it may be, and here it is; the soundtrack is pretty good, not brilliant, but not bad. It does its job, and enhances the mood of the scenes, what mood there is, anyway.

Until next time,

PhoenixAct.