I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself.
Twice this year, I’ve allowed myself to spend good money to see a movie adaptation of a property I love knowing full well beforehand that the film would be something of a frustrating experience. Bruckheimer’s The Prince of Persia was based off a great series of video games and was, at least, occasionally entertaining between bouts of incompetence. And now, M. Night Shyamalan has adapted a cartoon that I’ve only recently fallen in love with, and despite my premonitions that it would not be worth seeing, I dragged a couple siblings to a midnight showing to see it anyway. I’ve done the same thing with the Transformers sequel last year and a number of other doomed cinematic adaptations. I have some kind of puppie-like loyalty to these source materials as they make the jump to the big screen, one that has left me with fewer pleasant surprises than rolled-up newspaper swipes to my sensitive nose.
I’ve also given M. Night Shyamalan the benefit of every doubt I have. Unbreakable is still in my top 5 favorite movies of all time, so while watching his work take a much-publicized steep descent, I’ve kept hoping that his next film would mark his triumphant comeback. Even after his massive failure entitled The Happening, I still thought Shyamalan’s rebirth was just around the bend.
The Last Airbender has left me with no doubt in my mind that M. Night’s career is beyond hope. He has taken a phenomenally well-produced animated series and made what is one of the worst movies I have seen in recent memory(maybe barring last year’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen).
I’m at a loss. Where do I start with a movie this bad? How could this happen? It seemed like a sure-fire hit. You take a beloved series which has garnered immense critical praise and legions of devoted fans (oh yes, there were costumes in the audience) - a series which depicts an exciting, epic adventure spanning a conveniently-divided three seasons - and film it in live action with lavish production values and cutting-edge special effects. What could go wrong?
Everything, apparently. Shyamalan was kindly willing to show us just how thoroughly you can botch a movie adaptation.
Name nearly any part of M. Night’s bizarre vision in The Last Airbender, and it almost assuredly is awful (listed from worst to not-as-worst):
Writing: Here’s an oft-quoted example: “We will show the Fire Nation that we believe in our beliefs more than they believe in theirs.” Imagine the awfulness of this one line distilled across all the others spoken in a 100-minute movie, and you get the idea. What’s worse is a complete lack of context for anything that’s happening on screen. For all the terrible expository narration we get telling us what the characters are doing, Shyamalan never bothers with the crucial question of why? Our focal trio of heroes gets halfway across the world before they are given a purpose to even be travelling in the first place. In fact, if the narration didn’t tell us they were traveling great distances, we wouldn’t even be able to tell they were going anywhere. From what happens on screen it just looks like they lift off and land repeatedly in the same place, and it’s only the surrounding cast that suffers any variety.
Acting: The performances in this film are generally pretty terrible, but I’m willing to bet the turgid writing and controlling direction of M. Night played a significant role in damning the skills of the cast. Lead actor Noah Ringer as chosen-child Aang shows a moment or two of child-like energy and glee that brushes dangerously close to the source material before sinking back into self-important brooding. Shaun Toub as the sage-like Uncle Iroh and Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel as his troubled nephew Zuko stand out as two truly talented actors trying desperately to shine despite the the lines they’re forced to recite.
Direction: Every once in a while Shyamalan will give us an effective or interesting shot, but they’re lost in the midst of his uncomfortable close-ups, bumpy tracking shots, and blandly staged action sequences. And unlike his last several movies, Shyamalan keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, but he does so without ever making it feel like anything is even happening. There is certainly a story behind the various occurrences that are depicted in The Last Airbender, but our massively misguided director absolutely refuses (or just plain doesn’t know how) to communicate it to us.
Special Effects and the correlated violence that happens: The “bent” elements that were created by Industrial Light and Magic look fantastic. Flames dance believably from a fire pit to its target, water sloshes and bubbles with life as it is lifted and thrown, and Aang’s winds carry a surprising force to them. But there’s a certain goofy quality to the “bending” that occurs in the film. Whether by Shyamalan’s specific decree or by a misunderstanding by the special effects artists, the manipulation of the elements is sometimes comically disconnected from the motions of the actors onscreen. An example that got a few chuckles from the audience included a pack of powerful-looking Earthbenders synchronized in a powerful-looking martial arts dance that summoned . . . a small, head-sized rock that floated slowly past the camera before whizzing at a nearby enemy. Fire Nation soldiers (with armor and big swords) will often wait patiently while Aang and his bending friends do time-consuming, complex martial arts dances before finally “bending” their given element. This gives a herky-jerky feel to many of the action sequences, as one side will warm up their element with some flashy choreographed moves while the other side stand around nervously, waiting to be pummeled.
I’ve been overly apologetic about Shyamalan’s failings in the past, but as he’s taken on the writing, directing, and producing roles in this film, and claimed complete responsibility for other aspects such as the utterly senseless casting, I can’t pretend to be on his side anymore. The total failure of The Last Airbender as a movie, let alone as an adaptation of a popular property, is completely in his hands. This is Shyamalan’s failure, and if audiences are smart enough to stay away from it this weekend and starve the film into a quiet death, maybe it will be enough to wake the once-wunderkind director up to his incompetence, and bend his career for the better.
Oh, who am I kidding?
My rating:
2.5 out of 10 somethings
