Last Airbender (Movie Review)

 

From the story-line that made people twitch on their own seats, the lack of the accurate representation of the characters on this remake from the actual childhood favorite’s show to the budget wrongly used for a chaostrophic special effects: The Last Airbender is one of the worst movies of 2010. For those who do not know this movie, it is based on the Nickelodeon cartoon from 2005  The Avatar: The Last Airbender where it relates how the four nations on earth where the four principal elements were born (Water, Fire, Earth and Air) was under attack by the Fire Nation due to their seek of power and eternal control. The Avatar has the mission to protect and bring peace among the four nations, but he disappears after trying to escape from his duty because he was only 11 years old. After a hundred years, he (Aang) along with his flying bison (Appa) was found by two members of the north water tribe (Sokka and Katara) and from that moment, they started to travel all together in order to bring world peace after hundred years of war and to defeat the Fire Lord who was responsible of the chaos in the world. Throughout the Journey, the avatar is being hunted by Prince Zuko (Fire Lord’s son) who is trying to capture the avatar in order to restore his honor and gain a spot in the Fire Kingdom. Aang has to master the four elements in order to defeat The Fire Lord Ozai, but for that he goes through many obstacles and emotional paths to become the perfect avatar for the world.

However, in 2010, Night Shyamalan decided to bring the audience a live-action version of the show on a more summarized film even for the people who didn’t read the comics or watched the cartoon series; it did not turn well and the audience felt betrayed after buying the tickets for the first premier in New York on june 30th 2010.

Let’s start from the most essential attribute that makes a movie good: The Plot. Do you remember the background story that I previously gave at the beginning? This film took the story and threw it out to the nearest waste disposal. At the beginning of the film, we can observe how Sokka and Katara “approach the avatar”, it was inaccurate from start to finish. These two siblings were originally on a boat fishing when they discovered a giant ice ball with a person and a bison in it that came out of the water, the avatar after coming out of the water, he got out using his bending abilities. However, the film just shows a kid who was found by the siblings while they were unconscious in the middle of the tundra and right away, the avatar had the trust from everybody in the village which it does not happen in the original series.

 

Another thing to consider from this outrageous film the budget wrongly executed on this project. Around 16M dollars were earned out of the 326M dollars spent for this movie. The special effects are really inaccurate,  the flaws when trying to display the people bending the elements are similar as something you would do on a cheap school computer. On top of looking unnatural and lack of vibrant colors, the movements do not coordinate with the different types of bendings. While water benders tend to move with their hands and have much body flow while fighting, earthbenders are more rigid and defensive when battling with their opponents. However it seems like every single different bender was throwing air punches to each other making the special effects look off and awkward.