The Last Airbender

[Rberman]

Haim Saban summarized the casting policy of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers early in its run: "It's easier to find martial artists and teach them to act than it is to find actors and teach them karate and gymnastics."  That was clearly the philosophy Night Shyamalan used in casting "Avatar: The Last Airbender" as well.  It works, sort of.  Approach this film as a modern Ziegfield Follies, where the important thing is how people look when they're dancing around, and you'll enjoy it.  If you pay attention to things like dialogue, plot, and acting, your enjoyment will be proportionally diminished.

The iconography is classic fantasy stuff, with medieval societies based on earth, wind, air, and fire.  Each society has a few wizards capable of magically manipulating their respective element through Tai Chi movements.    Fire has its own color (black and red) and ethnicity (Indian/Pakistani, with Dev Patel from "Slumdog Millionaire" in a big-budget role as a shamed princeling) and aesthetic (steampunk) and philosophy (atheistic, militaristic, expansionist).   Fire has all but eliminated the Air society (Yellow, Tibetan, Buddhist) in an attempt to prevent yet another reincarnation of the Avatar (a butt-kicking stand-in for the Dalai Lama) who might unite all the societies in peace.  The Water people (blue and white, living in Inuit villages or ice castles) find the preteen Avatar in suspended animation in ice, an origin story borrowed from Captain America.  Two Water teens accompany the Avatar on his quest to add water, earth, and fire mastery to his air powers.  The Earth tribesmen (green, Shinto, Japanese) don't have a big role in this story.

The overall story arc is a classic hero's journey, but writer/director/producer Shyamalan confuses our point of view.  He sets us up to follow the waterbender Katara, but then he separates the Avatar Aang from her for extended periods, and neither she nor her brother Sokka get much character to work with other than standard "teenagers who want to save the world" stuff.  Aang has some angst at the death of his society and his guilt over having previously abandoned his responsibilities, but he's more the MacGuffin than the central character.  There's a lot of unnecessary voiceover, and some scenes consigned to narration that which could easily have been shown.  "Then we went to the water kingdom.  And the princess, said, 'Welcome!' and we said, 'Thank You,' and she said, 'What can we do for you?'"...

But never mind all that stuff.   The real attraction in a dancing movie is the dancing, which in this case is Tai Chi.  There's tons of it in the movie, whether tensely in fight scenes (of which there are many) or serenely by a lake, a glacier, a mountain peak, etc.  As far as themes go, the broadest strokes are compatible with Christianity (people of faith triumphing over secularism) though the details (reincarnation, chi manipulation, ancestor worship) remain implacably Eastern.  I'd like to see a sequel in the hands of a more capable dialogue author, one who doesn't make these otherworldly teens sound like they're about to head off to a shopping mall.

[Matt]

One of the biggest movie disappointments I can recall offhand. I read as many reviews as I possibly could and came away with having zero desire to see it. It just makes me want to finish the original series instead. How somebody takes that good of source material and screws it up like he did is just unthinkable. The original anime can be streamed via Netflix. I think there is another place online that will stream it as well.

[Rberman]

I'll add that I had good success explaining "don't be a herky jerky soccer player" in terms of the graceful movements of the Tai Chi in this movie.

[Anoetos]

One of the biggest movie disappointments I can recall offhand. I read as many reviews as I possibly could and came away with having zero desire to see it. It just makes me want to finish the original series instead. How somebody takes that good of source material and screws it up like he did is just unthinkable. The original anime can be streamed via Netflix. I think there is another place online that will stream it as well.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Ever.

And the biggest problem seemed to be the young actor playing Aang. I'm sorry, he was horrible.

And the dialoge was cringingly terrible.

My seven year old loved it though

[Matt]

The fact that only action shots were in trailers, and there were numerous trailers, had me worried about the kid as an actor. I've actually seen some people say even their kids 6/7 years old hated the film. On the bright side, the makers of the original anime are working on a new series in the same world just 70 years later.

[Rberman]

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen...My seven year old loved it though

As did mine.  It failed as a story/acting movie, but it works OK as a dancing movie.  Perhaps someone can recut it to include only the Tai Chi scenes.  It will still be at least 45 minutes long.