The Kidd Vs. The Last Airbender

The Kidd Vs. The Last Airbender

When a movie is as bad as THE LAST AIRBENDER, sometimes it’s extremely difficult to figure out where to start in going through the various points of the film that made it not good. But, for THE LAST AIRBENDER, I think I’m better served to start with the very basics – THE LAST AIRBENDER sucks… period. It’s not just the beginning or the end, or parts of the middle. THE LAST AIRBENDER absolutely sucks from beginning to end. The acting sucks. The story sucks. The dialogue really sucks. The 3-D really fuckin’ sucks, and, if there’s one good thing to come out of the movie, it’s that I had never seen an episode of the Nickelodeon television series, and, based on this awful film, I have no interest in ever seeing it, giving me a lot more time in my life to do other things.

I’m not really sure where M. Night Shyamalan fell off the road to respectability (perhaps somewhere between THE VILLAGE and LADY IN THE WATER was where it started), but THE LAST AIRBENDER continues to take him on the road to ruin, because, in light of his recent bombs, this isn’t the one to turn around his string of missteps and misfortunes. It only serves to make his legacy worse, as he has no surprise twist endings in his pocket here, to convince the audience it was all worth it in the last 15 minutes. He has to rely on a story that’s worth being told, put into action by actors that are worth my attention… and he fails miserably on the 2 basic elements he would need to make THE LAST AIRBENDER decent at best.

The basic rundown of the film is that there are 4 different nations, each with their own elements of power – water, earth, fire, and air. Well, the Fire Nation has risen the prominence and seeks to conquer all of the different nations in the absence of the Avatar, a person able to control, or “bend,” each element, providing a balance between the human world and the spirit world. The Avatar is found frozen in some ice, and, upon being awakened, we get to hear all about how he ran away, and didn’t want to be the Avatar, and all other annoying tidbits given to us through an endless amount of expository conversations by an unskilled Noah Ringer as Aang. Seriously… if Noah Ringer is the best Shyamalan could find for the title role, I can’t even begin to imagine how bad everyone else who auditioned for the part was, because this kid is Bad… with a capital B.

He spends the entire film, reciting his lines back to us, never once even trying to speak naturally or act out the role believably. The only thing I could accurately compare this performance to, in order to prevent you from ever having to see it yourself, is the scenes in ROCKY II where Rocky Balboa has trouble filming some endorsement commercials, because he is having difficulty reading the cue cards. Ringer didn’t have quite the problems Balboa did at the time, but their deliveries were quite similar. Ringer feels as if he spends the entire movie reading the script aloud, which results in you wishing the hero would perish immediately throughout the film, for no other reason than you won’t have to see him or hear him anymore.

It wouldn’t be so bad to watch actors read off the page, if the script was any good… but it’s not… at all. In fact, it’s downright terrible. Every conversation between characters reads like a question and answer session that exists purely for exposition’s sake.

Dialogue reads similar to the following:

Character 1: I would like some bread. Where can we get some?

Character 2: At the store.

Character 1: Where is the store?

Character 2: Up the street.

Character 1: How will we get there?

Character 2: We can travel by car.

Character 1: But what if the car does not work?

Character 2: Then I suppose we can walk.

Character 1: What type of bread should we buy?

Character 2: Rye sounds tasty.

Character 1: Rye does sound tasty. Where does rye bread come from?

Character 2: Rye bread comes from a faraway island.

Character 1: What type of island?

And I think you get the point. Now imagine that for an hour-and-40-minutes. The interactions are so wooden between characters that George Lucas would gladly take the compliment that not even he could write dialogue this poor. And to make matters worse, THE LAST AIRBENDER is filled with characters we’ve already seen before – the disgraced son trying to recapture his own pride, and, at the same time, his father’s love or the power-hungry king who harbors total disregard for anything of this world or not that might stand in his way or the military commander who is willing to do whatever it takes to rise up the ranks or… any number of other characters peeled off the baking sheet after the cookie-cutter served its purpose. Then, when there is some new character that might represent a new concept or idea within the story, they show up with nothing but the briefest explanation as to who they are or what their role is in this story that you don’t care about their words or actions, because they’ve been rendered meaningless upon their very arrival.

If the story was that memorable, I’d be all set to tell you more about it, but, outside of being distracted by the horrendous acting and even worse script, I was too busy trying to figure out when the fuck THE LAST AIRBENDER was going to be 3-D at some point. With this film and CLASH OF THE TITANS serving as evidence, it should be a federal crime, complete with a long sentence in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for anyone to convert a movie to 3-D after it’s been shot for 2-D ever again. This is the flatest 3-D movie I have ever seen, and by flat, I mean that there is no depth of field at all displayed in this 3-D conversion. There are vast mountains and grand landscapes that look as if they are cardboard cut-outs sitting behind the actors. The effects shots of the various elements aren’t changed at all by the 3-D. In fact, if I went back and watched the 3-D print without the glasses, it’d look nearly identical to what I’d be seeing with the glasses, which coincidentally I’m almost certain is the same as the 2-D version. So, if you feel compelled for some reason, however idiotic it is, do not drop the extra few bucks to see this in 3-D, because you’ll have thrown away money to go along with the self-respect you cast aside in your decision to see this. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if THE LAST AIRBENDER on an 8-inch black & white gave you the same picture as the 3-D conversion. After all, there’s something seriously wrong with being able to call your movie 3-D if there’s no 3-D in it.

The action sequences are nothing special, which is a shame, because you’d think that a movie that sucks like this would be able to offer up something to hold your attention. However, while you’re waiting for some benders to throw around some fire or shoot gusts of air or launch streams of water at their enemies, you have to deal with a great deal of arm-waving and body-twisting and… let’s just say that if one person in this world owned a firearm, they’d be supreme ruler, unable to be stopped. However, because this is a Nickelodeon film, all of the violence is kid-friendly, so no element is that dangerous towards anyone else. If you throw air at me, I’ll just bend some earth and put up a wall. Oh, now you’re throwing fire…? ‘Cause I’ll put it out with my water. And, as a result, the movie turns out to be one giant stalemate where no one comes out ahead of anyone else, meaning they could make these movies forever, something they hopefully won’t do, taking a hint from their own title that this film should be THE LAST AIRBENDER, as in no more.

There is no reason for anyone to ever see THE LAST AIRBENDER, not even if you need a place to commit suicide. This is an extraordinarily bad movie, and not in that good way, where you go to be entertained by how bad it gets. This is bad in a painfully excruciating way, where the only good action you’ll experience is the fight you’ll be having with yourself about trying to stay awake throughout this borefest. M. Night Shyamalan’s run as filmmaker who should be noticed is over, and his borrowed time to come up with something better than THE HAPPENING is up. There are no more second chances for a guy who’s only been able to survive this long due to his twist ending gimmick. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll have a SIXTH SENSE that it’s time to do something else with his life, because there’s no reason I should ever see his name on a film again… not when I know what the result will be – something that sucks like this, and, man, does this one suck.

Tags: movie reviews • The Kidd Vs • the last airbender