Film Review The Last Airbender 
US 2010. Cert PG. 103 min. Dir: M Night Shyamalan. Cast: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone, Cliff Curtis
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Aang (Ringer), a young bald boy with strange tattoos and glowing eyes, is awoken from a century of sleep within a giant iceberg by two teenagers walking across the frozen wastes of a future, magical world. This is a place where people have divided into tribes, each following the teachings and mastery of a different element and where the Fire tribe seek dominance over all. Legend speaks of an ‘Avatar’ who can control all four and will bring balance to the Force (whoops, wrong movie). Needless to say, Aang appears to be that Avatar – but the world he knew is gone and his teachings incomplete… can he master his skills before he is hunted down and imprisoned again forever, or worse?
The supposed advantage of live action over animation is the extra dimension that it brings to proceedings. So it’s with some irony and disappointment that M Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender appears incapable of mustering even a fraction of the charm garnered by the acclaimed Nickleodeon cartoon that inspired it. Shyamalan’s work since the superb Sixth Sense has become more like a series of vanity projects in which his determination to be both writer and director has shown up some very basic and otherwise avoidable flaws. Sadly, this latest outing is something of a new low in which not a single element (no pun intended) seems to work.
In an already creakingly formulaic story, the standard of acting is terrible – actors apathetically reading lines as if memorising stage directions and with enough leaden exposition to put the most tolerant audience to sleep. The visual effects, at the forefront of the trailer, are adequate but the decision to turn a 2D movie into the trendy 3D experience after production finished is opportunistic, obvious and does the film itself no favours. Cod spiritual mumblings, a too-light sprinkling of martial arts and the dodgy decision to cast western actors in key ethnic roles all ensure the film continues to flounder.
It is always important for a reviewer to bear in mind he may not be part of the target audience, but it is genuinely hard to believe that even a modern 10 year-old will be anything less than bored senseless by The Last Airbender, and existing fans of the series may actually hate it more than the casual viewer. Sadly, on a road to enlightenment paved with ‘god’ intentions, Shyamalan’s first instalment in a threatened trilogy hits every pot-hole possible.
On general release from 13 August
Posted on Friday 13th August 2010
John Mosby
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