Bending airs the wrong way
- Source: Global Times
- [09:21 August 27 2010]
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Noah Ringer as Aang in The Last Airbender. Photos: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
By Nick Muzyczka
The selection of foreign-language films that have appeared in cinemas this year suggests that those making the choices believe that Shanghai's population is composed of children. With The Last Airbender, possibly the worst film of the year (and an early contender for worst film of the decade), audiences are presented with a work that is an insult to children and adults alike.
Based on the hugely popular Nickelodeon cartoon, M. Night Shyamalan's feature film is an astounding disappointment from every angle. Pitiful acting, awkward camerawork, choppy editing, mind-numbing and frequently laugh-out-loud-stupid dialogue, a total absence of char-acter development and ugly costumes all come together in what must count as the lowest point in Shyamalan's career.
The plot, in brief, goes something like this: the world is divided into four nations; air, water, fire and earth, and each tribe is able to manipulate its particular element in various ways. Water people can shoot water, fire people can harness fireballs, and so forth. The awful fire people are subjugating everyone they can and only one person (an avatar who can master all four elements) can save the day. And he does.
Shot in 3-D, Airbender is murky and unattractive, with purples and browns and blacks dominating the color palette. The lazy 3-D work, combined with many other failings, means that audiences will get as much out of the film by removing their 3-D glasses entirely. Or better yet, they can close their eyes.
Almost every turgid line in the movie is plot-driven, with voice-over narration that often confuses and frequently repeats the information of the previous dialogue. The number of hilariously inept moments in the movie is difficult to count, though the following line may give a sense of the general level of quality: "They came with people and we fought them off. Then they came with machines (pause), big machines (pause), made of metal."
It is interesting to note that no one in the film's production team seemed to take into account British English when constructing the dialogue for this disaster. Surely someone should have realized that exclamations such as "Watch out, she's a bender!" might have a meaning outside of this poorly constructed fantasy world.
Newcomer 12-year-old Noah Ringer fails to bring a hint of charm to the central role of Aang, while Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel has had one of the most profound falls from grace in recent times. The casting of white American actors for the roles of Aang's main pals, Katara and Sokka (who technically should be Asian, according to the original cartoon), and a fully Indian-looking cast for the wicked, rapacious Fire clan has caused international controversy.
If you are thinking that the Global Times is being a little over-zealous in its criticism of Airbender, we would like to finish our review by quoting movie critic god Robert Ebert, who opened his assessment with the following: "The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here."
