542. The Last Airbender (2010)

Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Running Time: 102 mins

The Last Airbender is an American film about a young monk named Aang, who, after revealing himself as an Avatar, the last of his kind, must use his ultimate powers to defeat the evil Fire Nation from enslaving Water, Air and Earth.

Yeah, this film was as terrible as was to be expected. Completely slammed by critics, there’s almost nothing positive about this film, from its emotionless and dull acting, to its non-sensical plot and idiotic Disneyfication that prevented it from what could have been a potentially entertaining movie.

This film was dubbed to be ‘the next Star Wars‘ in 2008, and you can see why, because of its heavily religious themes, A-list cast, dazzling CGI and cinematography, and huge amount of action, however The Last Airbender manages to take all of those aspects too far, completely ruining the experience.

Right, let’s start with the positive: the special effects. As with a great deal of modern releases, there was a huge focus on incredible visuals, which were definitely fantastic to watch, however they failed to add to the overall enjoyability of the film because there was nothing to add to, as the rest of the film is so disappointingly bad.

The plot is probably this film’s main flaw. From a classic TV series (of which, I admit, I was not a fan), the writers took a deal of beloved concepts and managed to turn it all into a big-screen mess. I would say that this film has probably the most unpredictable plot I’ve ever seen or heard of, but that is in the most negative way I can possibly emphasise.

Honestly, the story jumps constantly between the story of Aang, an annoying kid, the story of Prince Zuko, an annoying teenager, and Commander Zhao, an annoying and incompetent adult, all of whose tales are horrifically dull and incomprehensible, meaning that you lose all interest in the plot pretty quickly.

Then, there’s the strange conflict the film has with itself in trying to be the next Star Wars while also keeping it a more kids’-focussed movie. There is a great deal of action that the kids can enjoy, and a young main character who they can sympathise with, however the film does centre quite heavily on religious themes, which are at points surely too complex and dark for this film’s target audience to really enjoy.

Overall, then, I’ll give this a 2.0, because although, as usual, I thought the CGI was pretty cool, it doesn’t offer anything else that is even remotely entertaining.