Out of sheer morbid curiousity, I saw the cinematic abomination known as The Last Airbender (don't worry, I did so without financially supporting it *winkwink*). The movie may be a slap in the face of the cartoon; but at least its a comedy goldmine for fanartists. Enjoy!
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Movie review:
This movie was PAINFUL to watch! And not just because I love the cartoon; it's just a plain ol' terrible movie. The worst thing is that none of the dialogue sounds natural. The characters just stand around vomiting exposition and most of the big plot points happen within Katara's narriation.
I understand that it's hard to cram 20+ episodes worth of story into a 90 minute movie. But I don't think these people even tried. The Last Airbender was an incoherent, poorly edited mess and I don't see how anyone who wasn't already familiar with the cartoon could be able to understand what the hell is going on!
Page One:
-The faux Chinese was just ridiculous. Why bother ditching the real Chinese just to replace it with a Chinese-looking gibberish language?
-Dev Patel spent a lot of this movie grumbling like Christian Bale. I know he's not a bad actor, so I guess he was just doing his best with the material that was given to him.
-Good God the Earthbenders in this movie were stupid! The only way I could rationalize them staying in the prison made of dirt was by saying "Maybe they don't know that 'Earth' and 'Dirt' are the same thing".
Page Two:
-The scene where Zuko recuits a little boy to tell Iroh (oops, I mean "E-roh") the story of how he got his scar was just...weird. I get that they were trying to tell us Zuko's backstory and show us that Zuko has a bad reputation in the Fire Nation. But that was a clumsy way to do it.
-If you've ever watched The Daily Show, you won't be able to separate Assif Mandvi from Zhao. And it doesn't help that his voice is WAY too whiney for him to be believable as a ruthless, badass, fish-stabbing military general.
-Movie!Blue Spirit looked ridiculous. And I imagine all that scruffy hair would be a huge handicap in combat.
-Yue and Soak-ah's relationship was a joke. You find out they became friends by hearing Katara tell you "Soak-ah and Yue became friends right away". Granted, they didn't exactly have much time to get to know each other in the cartoon, either. But at least in the cartoon I could believe that Sokka cared about Yue as a person before she died (even if he initially liked her only because she was pretty).
Page Three:
-Chris Hansen wasn't in the movie. But he should have been!
-Jackson Rathbone doesn't look quite as old as I made him out to look. But he does look considerably older than the other young cast members. It seriously gave me flashbacks to my days watching 90210.
-Yes, Katara really did get her ass handed to her within 30 seconds of her battle with Zuko. She sucks in this movie.
Page Four:
-Soak-ah's feelings for Yue struck me as more "creepy stalker" than "love" in the sacrifice scene. Only creepy stalkers feel that intensely for someone they barely freakin' know.
-Speaking of Yue's sacrifice, I don't recall Ong and Co. ever telling the Northern Tribe members that their Princess was dead. O_o.
-Ong really does do this bizarre pose for no reason at the end of the movie. Seriously, Katara tells him that the Northern Water Tribe has accepted him as The One and he responds by doing a goofy pose! I laughed like a maniac when I saw it!! XD
-The movie didn't actually end with Soak-ah carting Yue's corpse away. But it wouldn't surprise me if it did. Soak-ah is one messed up dude.