Ok, where to start...
How about, "I hate this fucking movie?"
Sorry for the spoiler vis a vis my score (more or less), but man, I really hate this movie. It just...UUUGH. Ok, I'll get into it down below instead of blowing my load here. Just, jeez.
Batman and Robin scale, same as always. Here we go.
Story/Adaptation:
In a fictional world of martial arts and mysticism, there are four nations, each one built around an element; Air, Water, Earth and Fire. Some people in these nations are capable of "bending" their national element, and by that I mean that they can physically manipulate these elements by performing martial arts their culture has developed. However, there exists one person in the world called The Avatar who is the physical embodiment of nature, and has the capacity to bend all four elements. This person is as mortal as anyone, but they reincarnate once they die, into the next culture in the cycle. The most recent Avatar, an Air Nomad named Aang, runs away after learning he is the Avatar, because he feels he is not ready for the responsibility to the world that comes with the title. While fleeing on his flying Sky Bison Appa, he gets trapped in a violent storm and falls into the arctic waters below. Shortly thereafter, the militaristic Fire Nation undergoes it's invasion of the other nations to gain control over the globe. They begin by exterminating the Air Nomads, knowing that the new Avatar will have been born into that culture.
100 years pass, and two teenagers from the Southern Water Tribe (Katara and her older brother Sokka) discover Aang, frozen in a sphere of ice and living in suspended animation using his Avatar powers. They awaken him, and he learns what his cowardice has wrought. Together with Katara and Sokka, Aang quests to the Northern Water Temple to learn Waterbending, the first of the three remaining elements he must master before unlocking his full potential, which he will use to stop the Fire Nation. But on the way, he is hunted by the Fire Nation, in particular the scarred and banished Prince Zuko, who must capture the Avatar if he wishes to return home.
The story is excellent. BUT, I say that with a caveat. That being, I love the story because it is the same story as the animated series on which this movie was based, that show being Avatar: The Last Airbender. This show is awesome to the max. It's probably the best North American-made animated series since Batman: The Animated Series, and in some ways, even better. The story is epic, original, and spans three seasons, with a COMPLETE story in mind from the start. The story is written so tightly, I'm still picking up on things I missed the first time around. And what's more, the show has so much heart. The acting is top notch, and every performance makes you feel the emotions the characters are supposed to be feeling. It's just outstanding. I absolutely recommend you see the show.
That said...
Technically, the movie sticks very close to the plot of the first season of Avatar (with the movie planned to be the first in a trilogy, each adapting the full second and third seasons, respectively). But this is actually to the movie's detriment. There are two polar directions an adaptation movie can be taken; either it wildly deviates from the source material and is [Insert Series Title] in name only, or it can be meticulously accurate to the events depicted in the source material and come off entirely rigid or forced. The best adaptations are literally that; an adaptation of material from one medium to another, so as to make it work for the new medium while still maintaining the overall spirit of the original. It's a balance. Now, we see a lot of the kind of adaptations that deviate too much, but we very rarely see the opposite. Well, if you've seen this movie, you've seen just that. The Last Airbender focuses almost entirely on just making sure the major plot points are addressed, with little regard for the flow or the heart of the story. It is Avatar-By-Bullet-Point. Sure, all the things happen, most of the characters are in it, references to things we won't even see until future installments are made, the whole nine yards. But at LEAST a third of this is expounded. Like, in the show's opening, Katara narrates the basic premise of the show, and to the movie's credit, this is more or less how the movie starts (only with a lame text scroll instead of the footage from the show). However, Shyamalan took this idea and RAN THE FUCK WITH IT. Katara narrates throughout the whole friggin' movie. And boy, they couldn't have trusted a worse person with most of the story (but I'll get to that shortly). And the writing. GOD, THE DIALOGUE. It is some of the most wooden shit I've ever heard. And it's mismanaged, even! There was a baffling scene where Katara narrates an event 3 minutes before we're shown the event she's narrating! Like, CONTINUITY PLZ.
In an interview, Shyamalan said he doesn't feel comfortable writing films that are longer than 90 minutes, that's his comfort level. As such, this movie is about that long. THAT is precisely why there is so much exposition! He's given the task, hell, LOBBIES for the task of taking 20 episodes of a narrative-rich epic adventure, and condensing it down to 3 30-minute acts? That's bullshit. This kind of movie needs to be at least 2 hours, if not longer. Then, the story can breathe. You can linger in the moments a bit, instead of dashing to the final battle like the story's being chased by a rabid dog. The story felt like a chore for the writer, instead of a joy:
"I got to the origin? Ok, good. Explained why Aang was in the ice? Well, it's narrated, but it's good enough. Done. Oh yeah, gotta do the Blue Spirit, even though I don't have time to relate the character's motivations in any way. Is it quitting time yet?"
That's what this movie feels like. If something like this is too much for him, which he basically admitted is true, he should have let someone else write the movie. He acts like an auteur, when his steady decline has evidenced that he is so not (and this is coming from someone who has defended most of his movies).
So the story, which he adapted from someone else's work, is great! But the writing is rushed, lazy, hackneyed AND stilted, the dialogue is atrocious and expositional to the point of DEATH BED-LEVEL NARRATION, and overall felt more like a task than a labour of love for the writer. I hope that clarifies my position.
Casting/Acting:
Um, WOW. This movie is RIDDLED with horrible acting, like how a rotting corpse is riddled with maggots. As I hinted before, Nicola Peltz was just awful as Katara. She's just reading her lines, which are horribly written, so double whammy. She doesn't even pronounce words properly (not just the in-series names that were frequently butchered, real words!). Her motivations are completely unknown to me or the audience-at-large. She's just bad.
Jackson "I'm-In-Twilight-So-Strike-One" Rathborne plays her brother Sokka, who in the show is so well acted who brings a lot of levity to the series, as well as being a strong leader to other characters. Guess what? OVERACTING CITY, POPULATION: THIS PUTZ. He takes everything SO SERIOUSLY, while never once coming off as serious. It's just weird.
Noah Ringer as Aang was ooooookayyyyy, and I put heavy emphasis on that. In the realm of child actors, he's average, and child actors aren't usually awesome. He's not as bad as Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker, but not but enough. Though I also give this kid credit; much like Justin Chatwin as Goku in Dragonball Evolution, I don't put all the blame on him. See, he wasn't asked to play Aang as such. Aang is a kid, he's fun-loving. Sure, they exposit in the script that he is fun-loving, but he's not asked to actually perform as such. There are hints he could be fun, but he's just not asked to be. So I don't hate this kid.
Asif Mandvi as General Zhao. Huh. This one's kind of tough. On one hand, he was not that good. But on the other hand, he was much better than I was expecting. I mean, he's on THE DAILY SHOW. He was in Spider-Man 2 FIRST, and in retrospect, I can't divorce his Daily Show persona from Mr. Aziz and his 29 Minute Guarantee. Here, I was doing an ok job of playing a character. Sure, he was over-the-top cartoon villain character. Heck, he's more cartoony than the cartoon character he's portraying. But at least he's trying, dammit. Still, he's unintentionally hilarious and removes all the pathos from the original character single-handedly, so take that as you will.
The only two performances I liked were Dev Patel as Zuko and, much moreso, Shaun Taub as his uncle Iroh. Iroh was always an emotional anchor in the show, for Zuko especially, so I'm really glad they got an actor with real acting chops. He blasts through even the shittiest dialogue like a pro. He EMOTES. Holy heck. As for Zuko, he has cheesy moments, but he had good moments too, and he really shone when bouncing off of Taub. These two legitimately felt like they were an honest adaptation of the characters they were playing. Kudos.
Everyone else was HORRIBLE. Dregs of the earth. And the girl they got to cameo as Azula at the end was creepy. She didn't behave or speak like a human being, trying REALLY hard to imitate the show's character, but it was just so beyond her scope as a human being to even sound human. But I also will say right now, at least half of the bad performances I lobby a lot of blame on the script being so wooden and lifeless, even good actors struggle.
Oh, and the whole racist thing? I don't, and never, gave a shit about that beyond thinking that Katara and Sokka REALLY should have been Inuit or something. I really don't think the casting was racist, just lazy. But even if it was, it's the LEAST of this movie's problems.
Special Effects & Art Direction:
This is one of the few areas where the movie is a success. Story, good acting and amazing writing is a major part of what made the show work so well, but another part is the visual landscape of the world they live in (and the animation, which is fantastic). The iconography of the world is very strong and unique, and the physics of the bending looks very realistic in the cartoon. This was adapted very well to the screen. Small cosmetic changes were made to make certain things seem more realistic or detailed (the prime example being Aang's tattoos, which went from solid blue to a series of intricate designs, but still in the arrow shape of the show), but it maintained the spirit of the source material. And ILM brings their usual awesomeness to the project. The bending effects, for the most part, look quite realistic and to be working in the realm of physics. Water looks like water. Earthbenders lift walls from the ground, with sort of loose bricks composing them and shuffling under the dueling forces of the Bending powers and gravity. It all works. Some of the final fight looks cartoony, but I am totally forgiving of it. Point is, this movie LOOKS like the perfect screen adaptation of Avatar. It's just a shame the only way this movie succeeds is entirely cosmetically.
Music:
This is the only other part of the experience I enjoyed. James Newton Howard didn't adapt the musical motifs of the show, but his score sounds just as epic, and epic in that "I'm watching an epic Hollywood fantasy and there's totally some whimsy involved" way that pervaded the 90s. I hate the movie, but I'm probably going to download the soundtrack.
Editing:
Since starting Journalism school, I've learned I have an love and maybe even an affinity for video editing. Since I've started down that path, I've become hyper-aware of editing in movies as I watch them. I really appreciate when it's done well, and it's very noticeable when it's done poorly. And man, THIS MOVIE PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE FOR 90 MINUTES WITH IT'S SHITTY EDITING. Stuff was cut. And I say this not just because the Kyoshi Warriors were totally exorcised from the film, but it's just painfully obvious there is a lot of shit missing. In fact, I'm sure at least some of the narration was hastily added to cover for plot points that were cut at the last minute. It's the same way I noticed that stuff was cut at the eleventh hour from Spider-Man 3 and the theatrical cut of Watchmen, only far, far worse. It's akin to a record skipping or a streaming video buffering, only it's skipping at the transition points constantly, so technically you're not being cut off mid-sentence, but really, you might as well be. Truly vile editing. Conrad Buff aka the editor of this monstrosity, if you are reading this, you suck.
M. Night Shyamalan:
Yeah, I went there. I'd talk about direction, but this movie was not directed. There was no director. There's Shyamalan, and he's credited as the director. But there was no direction in this movie. Hunker down folks, cuz I have a bit to say about this, and I may ramble.
So, the reason Shyamalan said he took this job is because one Halloween, his daughter said she wanted to dress up as Katara. M. Night didn't know who this was, so his daughter showed him the show. Soon, watching Avatar became a family event at the Shyamalan house, watching the series conclude together. It was a touching story. But now, having seen the movie, I think it's bullshit. He couldn't have watched Avatar and produced this. Or more accurately, he couldn't have been paying it much attention or caring about it too much. Sure, he knows the basic story, but he didn't understand the characters at all. He didn't get it, basically. He just didn't get it. He probably was more interested in spending time with his kids, which as a human being, is to his credit. My dad used to watch cartoons with me, but he didn't care about them. He was just spending time with me. Honourable, but not a good reason to direct a movie, as it turns out.
Actually, this is the second movie he's done because of his kids, the other being Lady in the Water (a FAR better movie, which says something),which is loosely based off a bedtime story he wrote for his kids. Isn't that a little odd when you think about it? Like, this is where he's drawing inspiration from. Not that hippie "my kids inspire me every day" way a lot of people who work in creative fields say, but like, he gets ideas for his next movie from them directly. I bring this up because here, today, in this review, is where I finally and irrevocably renounce my status as an M. Night Shyamalan Apologist. See, I've defended MOST of his movies to date, even up until Lady in the Water. But slowly and surely, he's snowballed. The Happening was at best hilarious, and at worst amazingly boring, but even then I was like, "even the best director has a bad movie." Not that I ever thought he was one of the best directors, but I at least appreciated his attempt to be creative and play with genre conventions. But this movie, there's no excuse. Absolutely none. When he is GIVEN the story and rapes it so thoroughly, that's your hoarse swan song as a director, or at least as an auteur, which he clearly thinks he is. If there is a second movie, and it's helmed once more by M. Night, I won't see it. That's how bad this movie is creatively. It's just all-around lazy on his end. And the final nail in the coffin for me as a fan of his is that I recently found out the movie that started it all for him, The Sixth Sense, wasn't even an original idea of his. He ripped the twist from an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark", a show I loved as a kid and still think was way ahead of its time. So basically he wrote a movie he basically yanked from a kid's show, it was a huge success (and to his credit, it was well-directed). Since then, he's been riding the coat tails of that success. It's why he's the "twist ending" guy! And in trying to chase that dragon, he's squandered what creativity he had, letting it stagnate in the familiar. Every movie he's ever made, besides this one, has been The Sixth Sense, just in a different genre. I think Unbreakable is the most creative thing he's ever done, which is sad because it's overlooked, but since then, it went from amazing, to mediocre, to dull, to dull and egotistical, to so bad it's good, and now finally, so bad it's caused the last human being on earth who gave him credit to renounce him as a director worthy of attention. I hope this is "The Last Shyamalan," because he's not only hurting himself, but his kids. I can't imagine how much they hate him right now.
FINAL SCORE:
3.5/4 - A horrible movie with some strong points, but they have almost nothing to do with the story and doesn't save it in any way.
I so rarely use decimal points in my scores, but this one is SO CLOSE to a 4/4 it really calls for it. A 3/4 suggests the redeeming qualities make it somewhat worth watching, but this isn't the case here. Not unless you could watch it with all but the music muted. Or maybe with audio from the cartoon dubbed in. Or something like that. This movie is unwatchable. The dialogue is as wooden as a tree, most of the actors can't come off as believably human, the story is treated like a task to be finished as soon as possible, the editing made my eyes bleed, and the directing is a non-factor because the director can't direct. And this is just the surface, people. There's a ton of shit that bothered me that I didn't even get to. The use of Appa and Momo. Shooting in Philly for most of the location shots. Mispronouncing the names and terms from the show constantly (lol Agni KEE). The PLOT HOLES JEEZ. There's just...so much. It has topped so many movies I thought couldn't be out-shitted by anything, and this includes Dragonball Evolution. YES. DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION bothered me less. How something as awesome as Avatar could be turned into something so astronomically shitty is a feat I can't believe was achieved.
So, yeah. I hate this fucking movie.
Until next time,
- TheSilentG
