20140215: Action Review--The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2010, rated PG, 103 minutes, action, adventure.
2. IMDB: 4.4/10.0 from 88,932 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 150 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 6% on the meter; 31% liked it from 318,495 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on SyFy, complete with commercial breaks.
5. Written, produced, and directed by: M. Night Shyamalan.
6. Starring: Noah Ringer as Aang, Dev Patel as Prince Zuko, Nicola Peitz as Katara, Jackson Rathbone as Sokka, Shaun Toub as Uncle Iroh, Aasif Mandvi as Commander Zhao, Cliff Curtis as Fire Lord Ozai, Saychelle Gabriel as Princess Yue.


2. Setup and Plot
1. On a planet not our planet Earth, political divisions are aligned with the elements: the Fire Nation and what used to be nations aligned to air, water, and earth (the element).  At one time, there used to be balance among the elements, but after the disappearance of the avatar about a century previous, that balance was lost.  The Fire Nation is in the process of conquering the planet.  Nations aligned with the earth element and air element have fallen to the Fire Nation.  A Water Nation stronghold still exists in the far north. 


2. A few people can work magic with the elements.  Only one (the 'avatar') can work magic in all four elements.  The cause of the political imbalance was the disappearance of the avatar.


3. Back to the film: at the beginning of the tale, two water nation teenagers, Sokka and Katara, accidentally discover the avatar encased in ice.  As fate would have it, extremely disgraced Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation witnesses this. 


4. The lines of power in the Fire Nation are broken.  Fire Lord Ozai has banished his son; Zuko's only hope of re-instatement is to bring the avatar to his father.  Oddly, Ozai prefers that Commander Zhao do that instead.  This undermines the success of the Fire Nation.


5. Another plot driver is that there have been no air benders (magicians who used the air element) for decades.  The avatar is ready, willing, and able to demonstrate his strong mastery of air bending.  The rub is that the avatar ran from his responsibilities (a century before) without having learned to use fire, earth, or water magic.


6. So.  The Fire Nation views Aang as a threat, but their efforts to capture him are weakened by internal dissension.  Aang needs to learn water, fire, and earth bending in order to bring back balance to the world (which is not our Earth).


7. This film is about finding Aang, then Aang's learning water bending while the Fire Nation tries to stop him.  That's it.


8. Future movies might include Aang learning earth bending, Aang learning fire bending, and Aang crushing the Fire Lord.  The current film did not address these matters.


3. Conclusions
1. Considered as a film in its own right, the picture was disappointing.  Considered as a live-action adaptation of the animated series, this was a complete bust.  If there are to be sequels, a different auteur should be at the helm, with some serious oversight.
2. One line summary: Disappointing action film; terrible adaptation of the animated series.
3. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Mixed.  The photography was well done.  The SFX was another matter.  Some of it was fine, but much of it was lackluster, and some was outright poor.


2. Sound: 7/10 OK, but nothing interesting.


3. Acting: 4/10 Aasif Mandvi, Dev Patel, and Shaun Toub were reasonably good.  Many of the other characters were not so good.  In particular, the choices for the characters Aang, Katara, and Sokka needed to be much better.


4. Screenplay: 3/10 The first ten minutes were rather good.  The rest of the story was not so good.  To complete the story arcs of the animated series, there would have to be two, perhaps three, additional films.  I do not see this happening.  For 150 million, one should expect a better script and SFX that varies between current and good to smashingly excellent.  Those things did not happen.  So, who would trust the same screenwriter = director = producer?