REVIEW: The Last Airbender

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The Last Airbender

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The Last Airbender tells the story of a world inhabited by four nations. Each nation controls one of the four elements. The four elements are water, earth, fire, and air. To maintain peace amongst the nations, one person is chosen to be the Avatar. The Avatar masters all four elements. For thousands of years the Avatar performed his or her duties as expected. However, the latest Avatar is a 12-year-old boy from the Air Nation named Aang (Noah Ringer). When the pressures of his new job get to him he runs away. Then, as he travels through a part of the world filled with snow and ice he runs into a snow storm that freezes him and his flying bison. 100 years pass and with no Avatar, the Fire Nation starts a war with the other nations and eventually takes over the world. Luckily, one day, a 14-year-old girl from the Water Nation named Katara (Nicola Peltz) is fishing with her brother, Sokka, (Twilight's Jackson Rathbone) and find Aang. After setting him free they update him on what has happened to the world in the past century. Now, he must finish his training so he can go off and defeat the Fire Nation. Complicating matters is Zuko (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire), the 16-year-old Prince from the Fire Nation who must capture the Avatar to prove himself to his father.

Reading that synopsis you'd expect a great movie. And if you've seen the Nickelodeon series that it's based on then you know there's a brilliant source materiel. Well, unforunately, director M. Night Shyamalan reduced an epic story into a 1 hr and 43 min kids movie. Do you know what Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia have in common? A long running time that explores the world, character, and story. You won't find any of that in The Last Airbender. Another drawback is the change of the character's races. In the series they were Asian. Here they've been changed to Anglo and Middle Eastern. Although some Asians are included. The change makes sense since Shyamalan wanted to make the film more global. However, why did the heroes have to be White? This franchise could have opened doors to minorities and instead it just reduces them to the usual supporting roles.

In conclusion, just pass on this movie. There's nothing good about it except the visuals, action scene, and score. Even the actors get lost in all the compression of this epic story. If we're lucky, and this film is a hit, maybe Shyamalan will make improvements in the sequel. Towelhead's Summer Bishil has been cast as Azula and she'll be amazing if the script is right.