The Last Airbender by M. Night Shyalamasama-kun

So, Katranimation and I watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender for fun. Yeah, we're about 50 years late for the bash-fest, sorry.

Biggest waste of a $1 rental in the world, holy crap. We all know about how the movie ruined the characters from the original series, so I'll just stick to the actual film itself and tell you all about it. Because just talking about how much the original material was screwed over is just too easy.

Story and Pacing: Even if you've never seen the original series, you could feel that this fell in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to take long-form source material and condense it into a 2 hour movie. As a result, the pacing feels ridiculous, moving too fast when necessary and too slowly when it should be quickened or not even there. Which brings us to...

Characters: You don't even understand why any of these characters LIKE each other. Katara and Sokka meet Aang for about 2 minutes and then he is spirited away by the Fire Nation. And they decide to save him, even if they've only know him for 2 minutes. Later character introductions are hastily worked in, either having the mysterious 2-minute I'm-already-attached-to-you syndrome or by narrator. For example, "Sokka and the Princess became close friends." NO.

Dialogue and Acting: Stiff, lifeless, and unbelievable. The only actor I can say did a decent job was Shaun Toub as Iroh, who really tried to make sense in this film. I also feel that Dev Patel as Zuko tried to work with whatever material he was mashed to, but it comes off as incredibly melodramatic. The screenwriting was bland and hard to follow.

Fight Sequences: Arguably the best part of the movie for some people, but not for me. Most of them were incredibly painful to watch. As I pointed out in the pacing, the fight sequences took up more time in the film than necessary. It felt like it was trying to be eye candy when it wasn't. I honestly feel that if these fight sequences were edited better so the cuts are faster, it might have more time to fix the problems in the story and pacing. But, the reason why these fight sequences were so painful was because of...

Cinematography: Jesus on a stick, where do I begin. The shots were bad, bad, BAD. There were so many unnecessary close-ups, and a particularly awful Kung-Fu type close-up with Jiao. The camera moved in a sluggish way, which probably was the reason why the fight sequences felt so off. When you work with a fast paced scene, the camera should complement it, not hinder it! rufftoon has a number of fantastic deviations arguing about the cinematography/storyboard aspect of this movie. Check it out if you're interested.

Art and Costume Direction: Actually, this is the only thing I liked about the film. Yeah, there were some interpretations that were a bit weird (Appa's chicken feet), but the costume choices were pretty nice and I like what they did with the set design. The ancient inscriptions in the shape of a tattoo on Aang was a brilliant choice. It does feel like it's in an Asian-inspired fantasy world.

Recommendation: Only if you're feeling masochistic. Actually, I recommend it in a sort of "what NOT to do with film" sort of way. Excellent choice for bad movie night. Excellent film to dissect and study on why it wasn't working. But as a film to enjoy? No way.

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