SPOILER ALERT!
So I just went to see the Last Airbender tonight and to be frank, I was very disappointed. The casting was terrible, the acting stunk, the bending took way too long in some places, and there was very little character development.
To start with, the fact that a lot of the movie was narrated by a voice over of Katara, made the acting seem repitious and unnecessary in parts. However, with that being said, the acting and the speaking parts followed that narrative style very well. For example:
"Katara, don't hit that with my boomerang," says Sokka in the opening scene. Was that necessary? It was quite obvious that she was running with his boomerang to go hit a big chunk of ice. Not in my opinion. Everything was given away before it happened, which lead to a very, very dry movie.
The pronounciation of Aang, Sokka, Avatar, and probably a couple more names were horrendous. The TV series quite clearly states exactly how each of those should be said, and the movie strays from that quite a bit. On the subject of names, every character's name appeared pretty far into the movie, after we had already met the character. And I believe, Momo's name was not mentioned at all.
The bending in many parts was very flourishy for what it accomplished. The biggest one was when about seven Earthbenders had this big "dance" routine to throw a single small stone. Now, the flourishy aspect of it was cool until the scenes that is took them five minutes to bend one small thing. However, when the bending was quick it really was quite cool to watch.
The last part I will talk about is the plot. I know condensing about seven hours of TV into a two hour movie is quite a daunting task, but they took a little too many liberties. Kyoshi Island and the Earthbenders mining on a ship was combined into one, with no mention of the Kyoshi warriors. They completely skip the part about King Bumi at the city of Omashu which is quite a critical character and part. Avatar Roku was never mentioned, only the blue dragon, who seems to end up becoming Avatar Roku for all intents and purposes. Basically most of the plot is just chopped up then stuck back together in a random order, not good for those who have seen the original series.
My review: a very subpar movie. The only thing that saved it was the bending scenes, which on a whole were absolutely fantastic. The messed up the character's personalities and races and almost completely disregarded the plot, even the main points.
So I leave you with one of the most contreversial quotes in the movie: "Waterbending teaches acceptance," Master Pakku says. Yeah, because in the original series Master Pakku is the one that does not allow Katara to learn Waterbending because he only teaches males. Way to go, M. Night.
2/5 for those who have watched the TV series.
3.5/5 for those who have not.
-AFR
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