A movie based on Avatar: The Last Airbender had so much potential. It was capable of being an epic movie series. Finally, a film has been made, much to the unfortunate torture of the viewers.
M. Night Shyamalan has a lot of nerve. On his most recent project (called, rather creatively, The Last Airbender) he dared to add his typical credit "written, produced, and directed by...". Herein lies the films biggest flaw: Shyamalan's script. The script fails on nearly every level. Some lines are worse than in the unforgivably bad film adaption of Eragon. It has no humor, terribly done exposition, and characters who "have no inner monologue". The television series was better written by unknowns in comparison to the film version, which was penned by the supposedly skilled writer-director of The Sixth Sense. The performances are also noticeably lacking, in particular from Noah Ringer and Nicola Peltz, who respectively play the leading roles of Aang and Katara. Their emotionless interpretations are not helped by Shyamalan's dialogue.
On the positive side, the effects are nice and the sets are truly eye candy (that is, when one's eyes are not strained by the tacked-on 3D). Unfortunately, this aspect is only ever a contributing factor which cannot save a movie with a bland script, case-in-point James Cameron's Avatar.
When I walked into the theater, I came determined to like The Last Airbender, despite the overwhelmingly negative feedback. I've seen worse movies, but also much better ones. Regretfully, it is a film that I won't jump at the chance to watch again. See it at your own risk!
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