I have been a supporter of M. Night Shyamalan for a long time, and he has done something incredible with The Last Airbender. Shyamalan has made an anti-movie. In the future this film will be shown in film classes as an example of how not to make a movie. Every element of this film is a heinous abomination towards cinema.
This movie is about an alternate earth where everything is divided by the elements. Each element is represented by a different group of people. The fire nation is trying to wipe out the water, earth, and air nations. There are certain people who can control each specific element. They are called benders. All the elements can be controlled by an Avatar, but unfortunately they are all dead, or are they. That is what I gathered from the terrible mess of a story. It seemed like every five minutes a new rule or exception was added to the story. The moon was revealed as having some special power near the end, but I am not quite sure what that power was. Each character was supposed to be special because of their unique powers, but seeing as all the characters are one dimensional I could care less.
There is literally zero character development in this movie. Each character narrates their storyline by stating the obvious. This movie missed the lesson in film school that said it is better to show not tell. There are very long scenes that try to push the story line along using dialogue and the result is mind numbing boredom.
I hated every single one of these characters, which may have been the intention of the filmmaker as the movie does nothing to make them likeable. The last airbender is the supposed hero that will save everything. He spends most of the movie in some sort of captivity and has to be saved by two kids. The bad guys are, wait a second they aren't anything. Basically they want to capture the last airbender, but not kill him, and I have no idea why. If it was explained in the film I missed it, and honestly I don't care.
This movie made me angry. It was as if I had been forced to look into the infinite beyond of film and all I could see was one of the worst films ever made. One budget estimation for the film is that it cost 150,000,000 dollars to make, and another 130,000,000 on advertising. None of this money is seen on screen. The CG is terrible. The cinematography is an embarrassment. The editing is mundane and unexciting. Basically I was flabbergasted after I saw the estimated budget. What a waste of money.
While writing this review I am still coming to terms with the film. Many times hyperbole is used in movie reviews in order to get an opinion across. This is one film were outlandish embellishment isn't enough to describe how terrible it is. The Last Airbender is one of the worst films I have ever scene, and that is the cold hard truth. Once this review is done I hope to never see a piece of celluloid from this movie again. All I have to worry about now is the nightmares caused by this movie that will inevitable haunt my sleep for future weeks.
This film gets awarded the first Film Ape dead monkey.
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