The Last Airbender? Let’s hope so. If I had to sit through another 1 hour, 43 minutes of M. Night Shyamalan’s take on Nichelodeon’s Avatar series, I think I’d rather give birth again without an epidural. I’m really not even sure where to begin. A friend asked me to let him know what I thought was the worst part…um, the whole movie? I guess if I had to pick the absolute worst part, it would be the complete lack of humor. Obviously one of Sokka’s main roles in the cartoon version is the part of comic relief. His humor is responsible for some of the greatest one-liners from the series. In the live action film, not only is he not funny, the actor playing him gives one of the worst performances I think I’ve EVER seen on the big screen. Aang (or should I say “Ah-ng”, but more on that in a minute) is also pretty amusing in the animated stories and much of his humor stems from plain immaturity when Katara and Sokka first team up with him. Sure he’s the Avatar, but he’s also a twelve-year-old boy, a fact that is not lost on the Nickelodeon animation writers. The live action Ah-ng? Not funny, AT ALL, unless you count some of the stupid lines he’s given along the way like, “We could be friends, you know” spoken to Zuko at the North Pole. Umm, yea, about that, it takes a while of the hate-hate relationship, more than just one season, or in this case, one poorly developed film relationship, to decide they can be friends. I’m pretty sure that line doesn’t come until the end of season three in the cartoon.
So, poor humor? Check. What’s next? Oh yea, the name pronunciations. You would think that a film adaptation by the same studio that developed the original animated series would at least get the pronunciation of character names right…right? Not true. Aang becomes Ah-ng; Sokka becomes Soaka (maybe because Katara soaks him in the opening scene?); Iroh is Ear-row; and it’s the Ah-vatar, not Avatar. Seriously distracting.
Acting? I hesitate to even go there. We were all concerned about the casting choices having watched the trailers, but this goes way beyond looks. Now, I liked Dev Patel in Slumdog Millionaire and thought he did a great job with the character he played there, but as Prince Zuko? All wrong. Last I checked Zuko was seething with anger at this point in his Avatar journey, but Dev’s performance is hopelessly mundane and morose. I don’t think there was a good casting choice in this entire film, unless you count Appa and he’s barely there. Iroh is probably my favorite character from the animated version because he’s such a great blend of humor and emotion. The physiognomy of him in the film is all wrong first off, but we also don’t get to see the depth and variations of his role.
Storyline is probably the one area most of us expected to be disappointed going in, How do you put an entire television season in under two hours and do it justice? Not like this, that’s for sure. The one thing my son said when we were entering the theater is “They better not take out the Kyoshi Warriors.” I should have known that was going to be an omen of what was to come. No Kyoshi Warriors, a bad choice if they want to continue making the live actions. This is akin to taking Dobby out the Harry Potter films. How do you introduce the character a later time when he/she/it is more critical? And what about Roku? Nope, not there, but his dragon still is, and it is the dragon who dispenses all the crucial spirit world advice to screen Ah-ng. Hokey? Totally! Then there’s the addition of an Ozai/Zhao back story. Point, please? I guess to fill details, but seriously? Time wasted that could have been better spent on so many other left out aspects (Kyoshi, anyone?). Zhao’s plotting against Zuko was much better served on the sly in the cartoon, not out in the open with Ozai like in the film. I’d say it was done to make Ozai look as evil as he needs to be made, but it’s in some of these interchanges that we get an unsettling glimpse of both characters humanity. Zuko is supposed to be struggling with his humanity, not Ozai.
Then there’s the fact that season one was titled Water for a reason. What was that again? Water, you say? I guess that would mean Aang would be focusing on learning to water bend. Through the season on Nick, this is exactly what we watch him do, granted it’s among a host of other things, but he steadily grows in his water bending skills alongside of Katara and sometimes even better than her. The movie shows him barely trying, trying and failing, and always inferior to Katara. He doesn’t truly show any water bending prowess until the very end, and no, it’s not even in the traditional form of a sixty foot high Avatar water monster! Katara is also made to look like a water bending idiot for most of the length of the film, and there’s not even a sexist conflict with Pakku to look forward to. And while I’m on the subject of the end and the Northern Water Tribe, I should probably discuss Yue. Not gonna go there. Why? I’m not even sure where to begin. I realize she didn’t have a huge, multi-episode role in the animated series, but I think the filmmakers succeeded in making her almost worthless. Yes, she still saves the moon, but by the time we get there, we’re already so done with this film, I’m not sure we’d care if she did or not.
I could probably go on, but I think I’ve wasted enough energy on this asinine film already. I think I rather either (a) poke my eyes out with a dull fork, or (b) watch Kristen Stewart waffle between Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, and if you know my opinions on the Twilight Series, that’s saying a lot.
