What Sarah and I knew about the show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, before watching this movie:
1. There are people who can manipulate (or "bend") the elements
2. This kid, Aang, is the last airbender left for some reason, and he's the Avatar, whatever that is
3. EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION ATTACKED
What Sarah and I know now:
M. Night Shyamalan, you are drunk.
Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable, Signs, The Village)
Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, and Dev Patel
Plot Summary: "Who edited this?!"
(We came into this so fresh and so clean, and we have to recap partly to make sure we understand what the hell happened.)
The Avatar is the one person who can bend all four elements (air, earth, fire, and water), and as such, the Avatar is the only one who can keep peace and balance amongst the four nations. Now, nobody's seen the Avatar in forever, but he's a Dalai Lama sort of figure in that he reincarnates through the ages, and it's been prophesied that the next Avatar will be an airbender. As you might've figured, there's only one airbender left (because EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION
Observations Made As We Watched:
--"I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I miss Twilight." / "I know, and I know it wouldn't make sense for him to have his Texan accent here, but I wish he did. S***, Jackson is so hot."
--"Oh, that was hella green-screen."
--"Where are they, and why are they all white?"
--"BOOMERANG VIOLENCE!"
--"This is the worst acting I've seen from either Jackson or Dev."
--"God damn it, the good guys are white Eskimos and the dark Indian is the evil one?"
--"So, Sokka can't bend anything, and that's why he has that lame-ass weapon?"
--"I feel like this had potential, because everyone says Avatar is an amazing show, but I'm already sad about how silly this seems."
--"THIS! BOY! IS ON FIIIIIIRE!"
--"I'm actually trying to pay attention, and I am so lost."
--"What is with this marshmallow dragon, for real, though?"
--"Are they dance-fighting? What the f***?"
--"If Sailor Moon taught me anything, it's that water will put out fire sometimes." / "Wait, Sailor Moon taught you that, and not life?"
--"I want out, but I know we can't stop the movie."
--"Oh, s***, Zuko's dad gave him the scar? That's f***ed up, bro."
--"What makes them think they can stop the AVATAR?!"
--"How the hell is a town full of waterbenders on fire? I don't understand how this keeps happening!"
"Haha, okay, Hollywood. You really couldn't help making the villains the dark ones."
"Just like The Lion King!"
"Just like every movie."
There's nothing more we can say about that issue tonight. We'll just show you.
Aang, the hero, pretty much the same as he was:
Katara and Sokka, Aang's friends, definitely white-washed:
Zuko, prince of the villainous Fire Nation, suddenly dark as hell:
This viewing gave us a case of Prince of Persia deja-vu, and not only because of the Hollywood-ized racial problems. Once again, certain physics of video games and cartoons just do not translate well on live-action film. Element bending, as an action, is this really elaborate tai-chi/interpretive dance hybrid, which we're sure was fine in cartoon form, as my roommate has told us the movement was much faster and more fluid on the show. In live-action, however, it looked silly and out of place.
Shyamalan was not the director for this material, which had such grand potential, but was on some sort of leash that never let any of the action get above a four. The fight sequences were ALMOST cool, and Aang and Katara each had some interesting bending moments, but they weren't heightened properly. Near the end, when Aang has mastered waterbending, he goes into Mach 10 Avatar Mode with his eyes and head tattoo glowing, and raises an entire tidal wave over the fleet of attacking Fire Nation soldiers chilling in the harbor, for about three straight minutes. We expected a grand WHOOSH. We expected to see Aang destroy those aggressive mofos and send the survivors swimming away with their tails between their legs. We expected glorious carnage for the destruction and insanity the Fire Nation had rained on everyone's lives, a watery "BITCH, BE COOL" for Zuko & Co.
BECAUSE, CLEARLY, THIS KID IS NOT IN A GAMING MOOD
You know what actually happened? NOTHING. Aang thought about how the Avatar isn't supposed to hurt people, and he stopped glowing, and he put the tidal wave down, and he let them go, and everyone bowed down to him as a powerful and merciful god. Like we said, all the action sequences were dissatisfactory, but that was a massive let-down after three straight minutes of Aang reaching "Jean Grey has unleashed the Phoenix"-level waterbending and the Fire Nation looking as though they'd all just crapped their pants. Especially after my roommate notified us that, on the show, Aang actually did what we thought he was going to do.
Sarah: "Is he just letting them escape?! COME THE F*** ON!"
Jasmyn: "OH, F*** THIS! I'M MAD!"
The Best Part: Ringer, the boy playing Aang in a wonderfully committed performance, seemed like he was having the time of his life. It's how we imagine we would feel if someone told either of us that we were playing Hermione Granger. Also, Oppa, Aang's pet sky bison, the creature I insist upon calling "the marshmallow dragon," was adorable.
The Worst Part: The storytelling in this movie was completely off. It was shot awkwardly, with tons of camera angles that were, frankly, bad choices (wide angles where there should have been close-ups, super close-ups on body parts when someone else was speaking, dolly shots whose movement distracted from what was actually happening in front of us, etc). The whole thing felt silly. We also had a bit of trouble following why certain things were happening, and apparently the story skipped over a lot of important events (according to my roommate) without filling in the blanks. We think we understood most of it, because, like we said, we tried really hard to do so, but a successful adaptation shouldn't require this much processing of the basic plot. Plus, we got weak performances from actors whose work we usually enjoy (Patel and Rathbone, in what we are now calling HICS, or Halle in Catwoman Syndrome).
We give The Last Airbender an F+.
(Poster and trailer © Paramount Pictures)
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