Saturday, July 10, 2010

'The Last Airbender' reviewed


Noah Ringer in The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon animated series. Watch the preview: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-last-airbender/36563/main
M. Night Shyamalan's last three movies were critical and box office failures. His career suggests his first film and biggest hit The Sixth Sense was just a fluke but we don't want to think cruelly of him as he still able to get financial backing for his projects. It's because his films aren't expensive to make and they probably break even or make a tiny profit from DVD & cable sales and foreign theater tickets. Here's his latest opus and I'm sorry to say it's a big disappointment again. It made plenty of money during its July 4th opening weekend despite the harsh reviews. We saw it because the previews promised a spectacular kung fu fantasy in 3-D.
>>The film is based on a Nickelodeon cartoon series I've never seen so I can't compare them. As a film it's draggy and repetitious and could use better martial arts sequences. The plot concerns a young boy named Aang who's the lost Avatar needed to prevent the Fire Kingdom from conquering more kingdoms. He can 'bend air' to create forceful winds as weapons, and he's aided by a female 'water bender' and her brother who convince him that he's their last chance in defeating their enemy and develope his other powers. Dev Patel , the hero of Slumdog Millionare, is sorta wasted as a scowling Fire Nation prince who needs to capture Aang so he can use the boy's powers as a means to win back his father's favor.
>> The dialogue is what you expect in these kinds of films with pseudo-Eastern philosophies only it seems to go on and on as if you didn't understand the simplistic explanations the first time. The production design is attractive on the big screen and the appropriate musical score helps but not much to compensate for this ponderous bore. The fighting scenes are lackluster for this type of story and when it's over, our feeling was 'EH.' As for the 3-D, if you blinked you would have missed it. The film was only converted to 3-D and not as good as other conversions like Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans. I'm guessing the producers thought this would help at the box office since they knew the film might be another Shamalama dingdong turkey. Either way, paying extra for so-called 3-D is a ripoff.
>>This expensive movie will probably do OK until word of mouth catches up with it. The kids in the audience seemed to enjoy The Last Airbender if being quiet during the showing and exiting the theater is a positive sign.... unless they were as numb struck as us. It also suggests a sequel but don't hold your breath waiting.... Last Airbender indeed?

No comments: