THE LAST AIRBENDER review

Whatever happened to the real M. Night Shyamalan?? Surely this impostor who is writing, producing and directing the last few movies under that credit is not the same sensitive, cinematically-engaged filmmaker who once gave us "The Sixth Sense", "Unbreakable", and "Signs" (all modern classics, for my money). Once the forth Shyamalan film came along, the artist fell hard. Apparently that's when the doppelganger took over, with the real M. Night clearly stashed in a closet somewhere. (And we know from "Signs" that will in fact contain him indefinitely.) The movie was 2004's "The Village" - a creative debacle he never recovered from. With 2008's "The Happening" - the single most embarrassing and misguided film of that year - Shyamalan's evil double had maximized the damage he could inflict upon a once great career. Or so we thought. With the utterly draining and incomprehensibly bad "The Last Airbender", the once-great Shyamalan name is officially tainted. And as a film lover, that is seriously a sad thing to witness.
Clone/doppelganger theories aside, "The Last Airbender' marks Shyamalan's first foray into mass-scale pre-existing franchise adaptation. Based upon the highly regarded epic animated series that ran on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, (a series I've never seen, but am not opposed to seeing at some point) the film (reportedly the first of a trilogy) (please God, no!!), chronicles adventures of a teenage boy (Jackson Rathbone from "Twilight"), his younger sister (Nicola Peltz), and the bald magical boy warrior (Noah Ringer) they thaw from a 100 year freeze in arctic ice. Turns out that the bald magical boy, Aang, is the long lost mediator between the four major kingdoms, each based upon one of the elements air, fire, water, and earth. In these kingdoms, there are individuals, "benders", with the supernatural ability to control their given element. Aang is supposed to be able to be the only one capable of manipulating all of them. Whether he actually can or not is another story.

While he was on ice for a century, things devolved to the point of war between the elemental kingdoms. The obviously evil fire kingdom (just look at their imposing spiky metal warships!) has become aggressive, although the young former heir to that kingdom, played by "Slumdog Millionaire" star Dev Patel is working from within to change things there. But in the meantime, the war still rages. The benders fight using a combination of martial arts and CGI. In this age of global awareness of Hong Kong action cinema, the martial arts of "The Last Airbender" are not nearly as prominent or impressive as they need to be. It always amounts to someone striking an action pose, then whirling and wildly tossing their arms until some flying fire, earth or water takes over. In the end it all culminates in an atrociously dull all-out war the likes of which we haven't sat through since Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood".

Anyhow, while I'm sure there's a cool concept in there somewhere, this movie completely failed to seize upon whatever that might be. Instead it imposes upon the audience one long-winded expository diatribe after another, each one throwing more and more Eastern flavored mumbo jumbo our way until the viewers' brains are turned to mush. Not only is the mumbo jumbo dense and flat, the poor actors clearly have no idea what they are saying. So, between the hopelessly confused adult actors trying to simply muddle through, and some of the most varyingly awkward youth performances in recent history, there is not one thoroughly convincing performance to be found in the film.

The problems with this film run as deeply as its exposition is convoluted - which is to say, extremely deep. On the other hand, the visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic are top notch. They are the lone bright spot in this whole affair, but sadly, they're not complimenting anything worthwhile. In addition to that, we are once again asked to pay premium ticket prices for after-the-fact, pointlessly retro-fitted 3D visuals that bring nothing to the table. 

Clearly, I did not like this movie. I won't pretend to have fully understood it - although it did nothing whatsoever to ever earn my attention, and in fact did the opposite. So, for fans of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", I do apologize for any details I may be muddling. Any and all disrespect is directed directly at the filmmaker, the alleged M. Night Shyamalan. Again, I hearken back to the evil doppelganger theory. In terms of youth performances alone, it's the only thing that makes any sense here. After all, there's no logical way to explain how a man who, once upon a time, steered the likes of Haley Joel Osment and Abigail Breslin (among others) to such outstanding ends could now steer young Nicola Peltz to deliver a cringe-worthy performance wrought with Disney Channel style mugging, or poor newcomer Noah Ringer into an uneven performance so flush with uncertainty, it's almost painful. Even the more experienced teen actors don't fare well under this director's hand. Rathbone treads water through the entire picture by sporting a glassy-eyed blank stare that borders on freakish. Patel's character's abrupt shifts from stoic anger to loud rage are almost comical. Simply put, this cannot be the same M. Night Shyamalan, the once-great director of young actors, and creator of carefully woven, slow-boiling, genre elevating tales that thrill. This cannot be that guy.

Sadly, every last remnant of that once great and promising career has now been effectively swept away. Whatever closet the true Shyamalan is locked in clearly won't be releasing him any time soon. His career is dead, and doesn't know it's dead. This film was supposed to be the first step in a new direction for the man. It could have been, at the very least, a fun, maybe even cool summer action movie adaptation of a popular animated series. Instead, "The Last Airbender" is the last gasp of a formerly terrific career that was bent the wrong direction long ago.

- Jim Tudor