Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Movie Review: The Last Airbender (2010)

Suge Knight Shyamalan follows up his critically aclaimed movie "The Happening" with The Last Airbender.

Directer Suge Knight Shyamalan promotional photography. Copyright Blinding Edge Pictures 2010

Hollywood must be feeling awfully desperate if they're harvesting film ideas from Nickelodeon's cartoons for children and babies. I tried to just forget that fact and give the film an honest shot.

The movie starts out somewhere in the north pole and these two kids are punching the ice trying to find food. Instead of food a boy and a flying sloth jump out of the water. they go check the boy and and notice he's a gangbanger with tattoos everywhere.

It is revealed later that he is an airbender. being an airbender doesnt sound so special. you can get a cardboard tube, which is full of air, and bend that and wow you're an airbender. I think air pusher or wind creator would have been more technically correct. i would also suggest wind breaker but a movie called the last wind breaker would probably make the public think it was about farting, and would be very disappointing to movie goers.

so the plot drags on and the airbender gets captured a few dozen times by the same guy and it gets really old. along the way meets other people that can bend other elements and he confesses he needs to learn them all because he's trying to show of for his girlfriend.

I guess Suge Knight Shyamalan wasn't happy with the original film run time and slowed down all the action and battle speeds to half speed so it could stretch the film closer to two hours. i dont really blame him for trying to make the movie longer so ticket buyers would feel like their money was well spent but i just fast forwarded.

later water people are trying to fight the bad guys the fire people. the fire people have to have a bucket of fire with them because they can't create fire. instead of the water people just "bending" the water to fall on the fire and put it out they just fight them with sticks. the fire king then eats a fish and catches on fire. He runs away to do stuff and Suge Knight Shyamalan decides to reference his older movie "lady in the water" and has a lady go into the water. feeled pretty forced but I guess he wanted to show off that he also wrote and directed that movie. Someone at some point around this time in the movie says "let your emotions flow like water"

Water puts out fire. Someone involved with the writing of this movie didn't realize this or something

Anyway the movie ends and sets up for a sequel and then the credits roll.

After seeing blockbusters "Lady in the Water", and "The Happening" I was really excited to see what was next in Suge Knight's world. If I was him I would have put my arch enemies name on the credits instead of my own after watching the final print. I was very disappointed because of the problems listed above and because of the confusing references to James Cameron's "Avatar" I must give this film my lowest rating, ** two stars.

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