The Last Airbender movie review
Mein gott... these are my thoughts about the horrible atrocity known as M. Night Schyamalan's The Last Airbender.
They really rushed the plot and skipped over a lot of material that was in the original animation. Within the first five minutes, Aang has already broken out of the ice, Zuko swoops in from nowhere and captures him, and then Aang escapes. The rest of the movie consisted of them running around the earth kingdom for a bit before reaching the Northern Water Tribe to fight against Zhao. I realize that it's hard to cover twenty episodes in two hours, but surely they could've explained certain parts more thoroughly. Even including the Kiyoshi Warriors would've been very helpful. This also goes hand-in-hand with rushing the plot, but they changed little details here and there, such as Aang driving away the Fire nation with a giant wave instead of combining with the ocean spirit and stomping on the fleet. It's still impressive, but a bit disappointing.
The special effects were quite poor and cheap looking. The water didn't really look good while it was being bended, and it was strange how people were not burned after being fire-bended. Even Aang's air bending was rather cheesy after the first couple of ice-clouds/dust-clouds. While we're on the subject of bending, the fighting stances they took as they bended were also a bit cheesy. To clarify, they always sort of made intricate... Naruto-esque hand seals (for lack of a better term) and then held it for a few seconds before the attack kicked in, and fire/water/earth/air shot out. That seemed really awkward to me- shouldn't these attacks be more instantaneous? Also, there were so many fight sequences that were slowed down for no reason- yes, it's cool to see the water break apart so clearly, but is it really necessary to repeat that fifty times throughout the movie?
The predominantly white cast and Indian Fire nation really irked me. It can be argued that Katara and Sokka could pass for Scandinavian or some other fair-skinned Northern culture, but then why have so many Inuit-looking extras in the villages? Same for the Earth Kingdom- all of the extras are distinctly Asian. Even Haru and his father, two minor characters, are Asian (as a side note, Haru looked really girly for some reason). Would it be so difficult to find talented Asians to portray a 12-year-old boy with good fighting skills? And I really can't get over the fact that the entire Fire nation is apparently Indian. Fire Lord Ozai, Iroh, Zhao, Zuko, Azula... even the extras for the ships were entirely Indian. I get the sneaking suspicion that Shyamalan wanted to show off his culture as being Asian as well, so that's why the Fire Nation is now Indian, when in the original they are clearly East Asian, not South Asian.
Finally, the actors and the script were terrible. The actors were very stiff and didn't deliver their lines well- I wonder if it's because of the crappy camera angling and how uncomfortably close they zoom in sometimes. The script itself was quite repetitive- I can't count the number of times they repeated "I am Zuko, the Fire Lord's son!" or " The moon and the ocean spirits power the water-benders!" Also, the script was quite incredulous at times:
Sokka: If you come to visit my home, my grandmother will ask you a lot of questions
Yue: Such as?
Sokka: ..."Why's your hair so white? That's very odd"
Yue: (Goes into long explanation even though it's a relatively simple question that doesn't need such a lengthy reply)
Sokka: ...You never told me that.
Yue: You never asked... Your grandmother did.
(Audience: *facepalm*)
I think if they had tried to be more humorous with the script, then the movie might be a little bit better, and maybe even a little bit closer to the original. As for actors, I'll just say this- Dev Patel is not badass enough to play Prince Zuko. AT ALL. Even the scar wasn't impressive and really hard to notice (but as a friend pointed out, a burn scar should look like melted skin (which it did) and not a giant red blotch...)
So in comparison to the original animation, it's an awful movie. Standing on it's own, it's terrible and confusing. Overall, it's just a horrible movie, and M. Night Schyamalan deserves to be burned at the stake... or drowned by a bunch of water-benders like movie!Zhao was. Either way, it should be a painful death.
I can't believe there will be two more movies after this... it will be extremely difficult to make this any worse.
They really rushed the plot and skipped over a lot of material that was in the original animation. Within the first five minutes, Aang has already broken out of the ice, Zuko swoops in from nowhere and captures him, and then Aang escapes. The rest of the movie consisted of them running around the earth kingdom for a bit before reaching the Northern Water Tribe to fight against Zhao. I realize that it's hard to cover twenty episodes in two hours, but surely they could've explained certain parts more thoroughly. Even including the Kiyoshi Warriors would've been very helpful. This also goes hand-in-hand with rushing the plot, but they changed little details here and there, such as Aang driving away the Fire nation with a giant wave instead of combining with the ocean spirit and stomping on the fleet. It's still impressive, but a bit disappointing.
The special effects were quite poor and cheap looking. The water didn't really look good while it was being bended, and it was strange how people were not burned after being fire-bended. Even Aang's air bending was rather cheesy after the first couple of ice-clouds/dust-clouds. While we're on the subject of bending, the fighting stances they took as they bended were also a bit cheesy. To clarify, they always sort of made intricate... Naruto-esque hand seals (for lack of a better term) and then held it for a few seconds before the attack kicked in, and fire/water/earth/air shot out. That seemed really awkward to me- shouldn't these attacks be more instantaneous? Also, there were so many fight sequences that were slowed down for no reason- yes, it's cool to see the water break apart so clearly, but is it really necessary to repeat that fifty times throughout the movie?
The predominantly white cast and Indian Fire nation really irked me. It can be argued that Katara and Sokka could pass for Scandinavian or some other fair-skinned Northern culture, but then why have so many Inuit-looking extras in the villages? Same for the Earth Kingdom- all of the extras are distinctly Asian. Even Haru and his father, two minor characters, are Asian (as a side note, Haru looked really girly for some reason). Would it be so difficult to find talented Asians to portray a 12-year-old boy with good fighting skills? And I really can't get over the fact that the entire Fire nation is apparently Indian. Fire Lord Ozai, Iroh, Zhao, Zuko, Azula... even the extras for the ships were entirely Indian. I get the sneaking suspicion that Shyamalan wanted to show off his culture as being Asian as well, so that's why the Fire Nation is now Indian, when in the original they are clearly East Asian, not South Asian.
Finally, the actors and the script were terrible. The actors were very stiff and didn't deliver their lines well- I wonder if it's because of the crappy camera angling and how uncomfortably close they zoom in sometimes. The script itself was quite repetitive- I can't count the number of times they repeated "I am Zuko, the Fire Lord's son!" or " The moon and the ocean spirits power the water-benders!" Also, the script was quite incredulous at times:
Sokka: If you come to visit my home, my grandmother will ask you a lot of questions
Yue: Such as?
Sokka: ..."Why's your hair so white? That's very odd"
Yue: (Goes into long explanation even though it's a relatively simple question that doesn't need such a lengthy reply)
Sokka: ...You never told me that.
Yue: You never asked... Your grandmother did.
(Audience: *facepalm*)
I think if they had tried to be more humorous with the script, then the movie might be a little bit better, and maybe even a little bit closer to the original. As for actors, I'll just say this- Dev Patel is not badass enough to play Prince Zuko. AT ALL. Even the scar wasn't impressive and really hard to notice (but as a friend pointed out, a burn scar should look like melted skin (which it did) and not a giant red blotch...)
So in comparison to the original animation, it's an awful movie. Standing on it's own, it's terrible and confusing. Overall, it's just a horrible movie, and M. Night Schyamalan deserves to be burned at the stake... or drowned by a bunch of water-benders like movie!Zhao was. Either way, it should be a painful death.
I can't believe there will be two more movies after this... it will be extremely difficult to make this any worse.