M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie titled The Last Airbender is an adaptation of the anime. I must warn that SPOILERS WILL make their way into this review so read at your discretion from this point on. The anime might help the movie bring in big bucks at the box office, but will also leave most fans disappointed. The film was written and directed by Shyamalan himself so if the movie doesn't live up to what people want the already infamous director (due to his last couple of movies) will only hurt his name further.
The Last Airbender follows or attempts to follow the story to some extent of the anime, in which a 12 year old boy by the name of Aang must help in the fight against the Fire Nation. Aang, being a successor to the Avatars was born with the ability to bend air as opposed to other benders who can only bend water, earth, or fire. Aang (Noah Ringer) is discovered by Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) after running away and hiding for 100 years. As the film progresses the audience learns that Aang has not yet mastered the bending of the other three elements, which only airbenders are capable of. Continue reading after the break...
The movie is relatively short (running 103 minutes) and it hurts the story line because it skips many key points, all of which are essential not only to the story, but to the fans of this popular Nickelodeon animated TV series. Fans will also dislike the fact that many things that do make it into the film have been altered, and don't follow their original way. A major one that I noticed was the pronunciation of the names and the appearance of the characters. For people like myself, that have never seen the TV series won't take the above into account, but I do believe that the story lacks a bit of in depth explanation as to what happened in the 100 years that Aang was gone. I say a bit because I still managed to understand the just of things. Shyamalan could have taken the script a little deeper and make the story more interesting because the movie really called for it. In my opinion the movie leave a lot to desire.
The fight scenes were good, but not excellent and what helps is the good CGI that went into bending the elements. The down side is that the scenes are short and lack creativity. In other words most of the fight scenes are shown off in the previews and I believe that's what will get most non-fans into theater rooms. If that's the case then they'll be in for a disappointment. M. Night Shyamalan clearly proved that this is not his type of movie, but then again his last few movies have flunked hence The villageand The Happening. He really needs to step it up or soon audiences will no longer care to see his movies.
The movie will entertain people who don't really care about the TV series or simply don't mind the story line. If you happened to enjoy the movie (or not) please let us know why in the comments section below.
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