The Last Airbender
M. Night Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense, The Village) adaptation of the hit cartoon show Avatar: The Last Airbender (see more on the show here). The story follows the adventures of Aang, a ten-year-old successor to a long line of Avatars who must put his childhood ways aside and fight the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations!
Includes Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel as the villainous Zuko and our own Cliff Curtis as Firelord Ozai.
- Director:
- M. Night Shyamalan ('The Sixth Sense', 'Unbreakable', 'Signs', 'The Village', 'The Happening')
- Writer:
- Michael Dante DiMartinoBryan KonietzkoM. Night Shyamalan
- Cast:
- Noah RingerDev PatelJackson RathboneCliff CurtisNicola PeltzJessica Andres
Reviews & comments
Variety
pressThis is all enormously disappointing, of course, since the best we could hope for from a live-action "Avatar" adaptation is the mind-blowing equivalent of our first encounters with wire-fu, rather than this cartoony nonsense.
Total Film
pressHalf a star for James Newton Howard’s imperious score and another for Andrew Lesnie’s lensing. But even that’s marred by muddy 3D in a film lacking any sort of dimension.
The New York Times
pressThe problem -- the catastrophe -- of The Last Airbender is not in the conception but the execution. The long-winded explanations and clumsy performances are made worse by graceless effects and a last-minute 3-D conversion that wrecks whatever visual grace or beauty might have been there.
Roger Ebert
pressThe Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.
Los Angeles Times
pressAirbender, whether intentionally or not, is pegged almost exclusively to a small-fry state of mind.
Hollywood Reporter
pressEven during the climax, the film still is struggling to introduce the world of the film and its strange rules.
Empire Magazine
pressFar from the catastrophe the US bewailed, but still disappointingly clunky. Notch it between Eragon (below) and Dragonslayer (above) on a sliding scale of fantasy filmmaking.
Christchurch Press
pressCHARLIE GATES is unimpressed by a career nosedive from director M Night Shyamalan.
It may have been a cartoon but for this director ti turn it into a movie is just unbelivable. It started off well and ended well too.
There are a lot of people out there who are just spoilt rotten with what they see! Far too critical and fried imaginations! Stop watching so much TV! I loved it. Took my 7 year old son, who did point out a few differences, but he totally got invovled in the movie and it brought the cartoon to life for him. He was a big Avatar (the other Avartar) and he...
This movie was quite good, but I believe it could have been a million times better. The acting was pretty good but got quite over the top in certain scenes, the fight scenes were awesome but all in all the movie was only quite good, I have seen much better.
This movie was garbage, if there was a star rating for -5 i'd pick that. This movie had so much potential but the director, some clown that has never seen the cartoons stuffed it all up. all the names were wrong, if you are going to this movie, to think its like the cartoon be prepared to be very disappointed, i know i surely was. the acting was horrible...
A string of logic: Shyamalan wrote this, Shyamalan is illiterate; Shyamalan directed this, Shyamalan is a liar!
I loved the TV series and I realise that you can't fit in an entire season into 100 min but seriously WTF?? The martial arts were average at best, the acting was horrible yes the actors looked a lot like the characters (which is very cool)but that doesn't make up for the fact the movie had no heart. Seriously people don't waste your money! P.s. Why do...
The cartoon of this movie was good and well strung together whilst the 90 minute load of rubbish is the result of trying to cram 3 books and 63 episodes into a good waste of time where there is no Toph and Saka isn't funny.
Yes mixed pace with terribly wooden performances from the cast, and unfortunately our own Cliff Curtis i feel had the worst delivery of the lot. I was generally not comfortable with his scenes. That said, beautiful visuals. Particularly enjoyed the Fire Nation's Ocean faring fleet and of course the Bending itself. 2 1/2 if it was possible to score this..
Variety
pressThis is all enormously disappointing, of course, since the best we could hope for from a live-action "Avatar" adaptation is the mind-blowing equivalent of our first encounters with wire-fu, rather than this cartoony nonsense.
Total Film
pressHalf a star for James Newton Howard’s imperious score and another for Andrew Lesnie’s lensing. But even that’s marred by muddy 3D in a film lacking any sort of dimension.
The New York Times
pressThe problem -- the catastrophe -- of The Last Airbender is not in the conception but the execution. The long-winded explanations and clumsy performances are made worse by graceless effects and a last-minute 3-D conversion that wrecks whatever visual grace or beauty might have been there.
Roger Ebert
pressThe Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.
Los Angeles Times
pressAirbender, whether intentionally or not, is pegged almost exclusively to a small-fry state of mind.
Hollywood Reporter
pressEven during the climax, the film still is struggling to introduce the world of the film and its strange rules.
Empire Magazine
pressFar from the catastrophe the US bewailed, but still disappointingly clunky. Notch it between Eragon (below) and Dragonslayer (above) on a sliding scale of fantasy filmmaking.
Christchurch Press
pressCHARLIE GATES is unimpressed by a career nosedive from director M Night Shyamalan.
It may have been a cartoon but for this director ti turn it into a movie is just unbelivable. It started off well and ended well too.
There are a lot of people out there who are just spoilt rotten with what they see! Far too critical and fried imaginations! Stop watching so much TV! I loved it. Took my 7 year old son, who did point out a few differences, but he totally got invovled in the movie and it brought the cartoon to life for him. He was a big Avatar (the other Avartar) and...
This movie was quite good, but I believe it could have been a million times better. The acting was pretty good but got quite over the top in certain scenes, the fight scenes were awesome but all in all the movie was only quite good, I have seen much better.
This movie was garbage, if there was a star rating for -5 i'd pick that. This movie had so much potential but the director, some clown that has never seen the cartoons stuffed it all up. all the names were wrong, if you are going to this movie, to think its like the cartoon be prepared to be very disappointed, i know i surely was. the acting was horrible...
A string of logic: Shyamalan wrote this, Shyamalan is illiterate; Shyamalan directed this, Shyamalan is a liar!
I loved the TV series and I realise that you can't fit in an entire season into 100 min but seriously WTF?? The martial arts were average at best, the acting was horrible yes the actors looked a lot like the characters (which is very cool)but that doesn't make up for the fact the movie had no heart. Seriously people don't waste your money! P.s. Why do...
The cartoon of this movie was good and well strung together whilst the 90 minute load of rubbish is the result of trying to cram 3 books and 63 episodes into a good waste of time where there is no Toph and Saka isn't funny.
Yes mixed pace with terribly wooden performances from the cast, and unfortunately our own Cliff Curtis i feel had the worst delivery of the lot. I was generally not comfortable with his scenes. That said, beautiful visuals. Particularly enjoyed the Fire Nation's Ocean faring fleet and of course the Bending itself. 2 1/2 if it was possible to score this..
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