Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie Review

Impressions Before Watching the Movie

Ok, I haven't really started a post for a while, but I figured with the release of this film coming up very soon and my plans to go take my daughter to see it upon my return back to the State here in a few when the movie releases (July 2nd) I'd talk about it a bit and get ready to review it.

I think my first issue is that I'm gonna go in with my expectations set low, very very low. Not even sure why I want to go see it? oh yeah that's right, pure curiosity and the fact that I think that the cartoon is probably one of the best stories that has been put out for kids in a long long time, My daughter and I watched the entire 3 seasons in a period of a few days because it was so engrossing. I also think I am willing to see it because of all the issues that the film has caused. For those not aware, M. Night Shamalomadingdong white washed the casting for a fantasy based world that should be all Asian. So of course anything that race baits me has my attention, because I'm a stereotypical bigoted cracker. (but in all reality the cartoon is heavy in Asian lore and culture spanning from Western to Easter Asia).

Websites have actually been dedicated to the whole white washing of cast, so if you want a good laugh, look at racebender.com, both sides are filled with ignorance and the ability to spew pure acidic bile from their mouths that they make the greatest of God of War fanboys look tame and polite.

Ok now on to what I know about the movie and what I love about the cartoon.

The setting is simple but well done, and the story line is classic good vs evil. The world consists of 4 nations based on the elements Earth, Fire, Water and Air, within each nation are people that can control the related elements with a mystical almost magical way. However there is at all times 1 person who can control all 4 elements and is meant to maintain piece and balance in the world he is the Avatar and he continues life through reincarnation (he's a bad ass Dali-Lama).

The current Avatar is a 12 year old boy that hails from the Monasteries of the Air Nation Nomads, he disappeared 100 years ago, and in that time, the Fire nation began a world war for dominance and control and completely whipped out the Avatar's nation to destroy the avatar, but he somehow got away. The boy must face the Fire Lord  and defeat him in order to restore balance, but to do so he must master the elements before a deadline that will give the Fire lord more power than ever seen. Like I said a very simple story line, but what made the cartoon so great was the insert of humor, compassion, actual development of characters and the ability to connect and feel a part of the world.

Now for the movie, from what I have seen and read on the story line, the Avatar isn't a reincarnation of lives past, but rather a fluke, a myth that was born into a prophecy to defeat the Fire Lord and stop the fire nation. Though that is all speculation.
The movie will cover the First Book (season) of the carton, and follow the Avatar's attempt to learn and master the art of waterbending, and will end with the battle at the north pole of the Fire Nation against the northern Water Tribe.

So here is to me expecting M. Night Shamalamadingdong to drag the movie out, withdraw the humor and slow it down to a painful drag, but I am keeping my expectations down so low in hopes that I walk out of the Theater with a smile.

After Seeing The Movie

And here we have it, M Night Shamalan does it yet again, he created a .... Wait for it..... Wait for it.... Another FLOP! Yet, I'm not in the slightest bit surprised, nor disappointed, as a matter of fact, I went into the theaters Friday expecting it. So let's go over it anyway, lets break down the film and find that little shimmer of light that might be a silver lining and discover together why this movie was so bad, and why if you want to watch a great story, you should just check out the source material instead.

The Story

This isn't one of M Night's own creations, but rather a really bad plagiarism of great source material. I'll do my best to focus on the movie and not go into tirades of how it raped the original story from the series, but I can't make any promises on this.
The world is a divided world, consisting of four nations whose lifestyle is influenced by the elements: you have the Water Tribe, the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom and the Air Nomads. Within these nations there are a chosen few who are bestowed the ability to control or bend the element. Then, there is one who has the ability to bend all four elements and is the connection to the spirit world, this is the Avatar. The Avatar is reincarnated after every death and must journey through learning the four elements in the proper cycle. But, 100 years ago, the Avatar disappeared and with this the Fire Nation attacked and began a war to dominate the other nations. They knew the new Avatar was an air bender so they committed genocide of the Air Nomads to wipe them all out.
Fast forward 100 from the genocide of the Air Nomads and you are now at the beginning of the film, walking around the icy lands of the South Pole inhabited by the Southern Water Tribe. Brother and sister are walking looking for food, and Sokka (played by Jonathan Rathbone of Twilight fame) looks as though he is about to cry and lips pouted out like he is auditioning for a part in the next season of "Jersey Shore" (oddly enough he has this look on his face the rest of the film). The two discover a glowing sphere and sick curiosity, and with the need to move the story along, Katara breaks open the orb to find...gasp... an air bender. Why, this must be the Avatar! And, why yes, yes it is. Now the story will progress to the young Air bender, Aang discovering his Avatar powers, and he will start his mastery of the element water He will travel to the North Pole to the Northern Water tribe and find a master Water Bender to teach him.
The next 2 movies if made will be Earth, then Fire and the restoring of balance by defeating the Fire lord.
 

Characters

Aang is the avatar a young boy who ran away when discovering that he was the avatar and then got frozen in an iceberg. No showing how, no explanation why, it just happened. He is destined to return the world to balance by learning mastering the 4 elements and stopping the Fire Nation and their attempt to dominate the world. Ok, I have to do some comparison here to the cartoon series and the story line differences that really shouldn't have happened. In the movie they fail to explain that Aang must defeat the Fire Lord and that he must do it in haste because of a comet that will make the fire benders more powerful. At the very end they show that the fire lord knows this, but not the Avatar. Also the movie indicates that the Avatar can not cause harm, or kill. WRONG, it is the Avatar's duty to restore and maintain balance, and if that means destroying something that is so far out of whack, then that is what the Avatar must do. The conflict in the series is that Aang is a monk and is taught to avoid conflict and defend and protect rather than destroy, so being the Avatar goes against his fundamental beliefs. So I was pretty irritated by this. But oh well, that's just me and my frustration. His acting is, well in a word, "lame". The kid lacks any grace or appearance of comfort when performing any martial arts, he looks constipated for half the film, I was tempted to get up find him and offer him an ex-lax to help him out.

Katara and Sokka, they are Aang's travel companions and his new family, but they focus so little on them that it is pointless to even care about them, and they serve no real purpose other than to be there. No real dialogue from them. They are written out so two dimensionally that it is just horrid to watch them in the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. Katara is supposed to be a motherly figure that inspires Aang's hopes and provides his encouragement, but in this movie she just whines. Sokka is no better with his Gotti lip impression and tears, I actually wanted him to just die in the film, where as in the series he was the comic relief and is the funny one that would ground the other characters.

Prince Zuko, the banished prince, is the son of the Fire Lord. He must find and capture the Avatar and bring him to the Fire Lord to restore his honor and take his rightful place as the heir to the throne. Dave Patel from "Slumdog Millionaire" plays this role and goes way overboard. If you ever went to any plays in high school, you have that one actor that goes way over the top, you know the type: "art is pain and acting is suffering, ohhhh look at me suffer!" Yeah he's that guy! Rather annoying, was it his acting or just the rushed script? I say a good combination of both.

After that all the other characters are really of no importance, you have the Fire Lord. Well, he is just the big bad guy, but not at all intimidating or imposing. You have General Zhou, who is also hunting the Avatar, but he's a joke of a military commander.

The Effects, Fighting and Costumes

Ohhhh the effects. The effects I will say where beautiful, the bending itself looked great when it happened and were done realistically and beautifully (just don't see it in 3D, M. Nights filming methods are not meant for 3D). However they completely kill all the lovely effects of elemental bending by how slow the fighting moves. Think of doing a full series of moves just to make water rise, then another series of 10 moves to move it forward at a speed of about 1mph. Really, is it going to hurt someone to slap them with water moving slower than it would from a water gun? So unfortunately the fights are slow, fire attacks, water defends... wait, water attacks, fire defends, and someone gets knocked over fight, and the fight is done? I would have liked to see Shamalamadingdong actually hire a fight coordinator to have helped with that and maybe look at the series and how fluid and quick the bending is, how the elements are extensions of the benders body and more than just rocks that you can throw.
The costumes and the scenery was very well done, and beautiful if I may say so, but all that effort put into the world just takes the shit acting and script, polishes it, so essentially you just have a bright and shiny turd.

Race Bending!

Just because I want to add controversy. I can't say I was a race bender, or a pro-caster in this but what I can say is the world was a fantasy world, Yes, it happened to be influenced by Asian and Inuit sources, but it is an imaginary world and race isn't really something there. Growing up in the north, with Inuits, I don't remember seeing to many of them with crystal blue eyes (unless you count the blind ones with really bad cases of cataracts). I'm just saying. I don't think casting a full Asian cast would have done this movie any better because the script was horrid, the direction was horrid, and the cast was actually pretty well diverse and if they do make a new movie, which will take place in the earth kingdom, they are all Asian in this film so I think that it will hold true in a sequel. I think the race bending issue was a case of PC gone too far, and last time I checked, isn't Shamalamadingdong a minority Asian race type?