Movie Review: The Last Airbender (F)

By ANDY MORGAN

There are very few movies I completely and utterly abhor. Generally, I can usually find something positive or likeable in a film, even if said cinema is receiving disgust and scorn en masse from most fall-in-line movie critics. I relish the truth that I don’t always see eye-to-eye with most critics and can find some thread of hope in Hollywood’s efforts. Such is not the case with M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. I literally hated every cringe-inducing minute I spent at the Cineplex with the useless 3D glasses stuck to my face. And I’m even angrier because Shyamalan duped me back in 2008 with The Happening, another dreadful catastrophe from the guy behind Signs, one of my favorite movies of all-time. He’s been on the Tour of Suck since The Village and given every opportunity to succeed, he falls flat. Shame on Shyamalan.

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Movie Review: The Last Airbender (C-)

By DAN VINTON

If there’s one thing The Last Airbender does well, it proves any mystique surrounding M. Night Shaymalan is gone. With this coffin-bound nail, all residual goodwill The Sixth Sense director retained from followup successes like Unbreakable, Signs and even the creepy but fatally flawed The Village has been throttled by his is own hands.

Shaymalan’s latest, (based on the 2005-2008 Nickelodeon cartoon series I’ve never seen), builds a likable, tactile, genuinely fascinating and lushly art-directed world of mishmashed fantasy/Asian mysticism where unique, element controlling tribes seek Aang, a lost kid who must find himself before he can bring them all together. Along the way, Aang is aided by a couple white kids and and an unexplained floating Wampa-thing that looks like Falcor‘s fat, lazy cousin– all while being pursued by angry members of the warmongering, machine-making Fire Clan.

The story follows a traditional theme undermined and sabotaged by offputtingly miscast high school amateur hour “actors” (including Twilight‘s awful Jackson Rathbone and Slumdog Millionaire’s still-wet-behind-the-ears Dev Patel) who force ear-punishing dialogue in cringe worthy combos in story progression unseen since Barney & Friends. And while a third act showdown between armies of fire and ice picks things up a bit and the action is kinetic and interesting enough to warrant some moderate thrills, the movie collapses against the traveshamockery of its mutton-fisted, amateur and ultimately uninvolving first 70 minutes.

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Full Length The Last Airbender Trailer Pushes Air

While Andy’s convinced The Last Airbender will suck, I’m not so sure. Nothing I’ve seen so far has turned me off — opposite, even. Elements battling elements, dudes being thrown to oblivion, world creation and a kid’s skull lighting up like a Tron car. Despite its inherent kid focus (it’s based on a Nickelodeon cartoon after all)… I think it looks cool and will be, at worst, mildly entertaining.

Earlier trailers have focused on the high-flying gee-whizery of the movie, but the latest focuses a little more on story– and I kinda like the direction. Sure, it’s your standard journey of a hero, but I like the Fifth Element-esque idea of a super powerful kid who’s all alone and emotionally vulnerable– in need of a “family” or connection for safe harbor. There’s a fine line there between cheesy and resonant, but judging by this trailer at least, it’s hopefully steering closer to resonant.

Recent story missteps and name poison aside, M. Night Shyamalan remains a skilled, if now finally humbled,  filmmaker. I’m willing to give him all kinds of benefit of the doubt on The Last Airbender, namely because this world/universe isn’t his material, so the twist gimmick is probably out on this one.

Choose sides below:

Rating the 2010 Super Bowl Trailers

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints on winning Super Bowl XLIV in what may have been the most boring NFL championship since, well, the last time the Indianapolis Colts went to the Super Bowl in 2007. And while I love football as much as the next dude, I won’t lie – I anticipate the commercial breaks in the hope I’ll see some genius advertising or some phenomenal movie preview.

This year’s commercials and trailers were ho-hum, except for the Google “Search On” ad (who thought you could tell a love story using a search engine in less than a minute?), the Doritos “House Rules” commercial and the Careerbuilder.com “Casual Friday” spot, the rest were either bizarre, unfunny or beyond stale (Bud Light, I’m talking to you).  Even more glaring was the absence of trailers for Iron Man 2, The A-Team, Clash of the Titans, Toy Story 3, Shrek Forever After, Despicable Me and Tron: Legacy.

Here’s a rundown of the movie trailers shown during Super Bowl XLIV. Click the movie name to watch the preview.

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Trailer Tuesday (Dan’s Pick): The Last Airbender (aka: That’s a Crapload of Candles)

So the last few years haven’t been good for one Manoj (that’s “M.” for short) Night Shyamalan. The trouble all started with The Village, which was genuinely creepy but lost audiences with bait and switch marketing and yet another twist ending that deflated almost all of the preceding narrative. Lady in the Water, commendable for its intent, failed to connect with anyone but the actors, ego and monkey tree-things it cut paychecks for. The Happening… wince.

So yeah, yeah, M. Night has hit the skids as of late. Not because he’s a bad director– as his early catalog attests, the dude’s deliberate and fantastic when he wants to be– but because the guy became way too reliant on his ability to surprise and overconfident in his increasingly egocentric and convoluted storytelling ability.

What M. Night needed was a reinvention via 3rd party material. With The Last Airbender, he’s been given his chance at that reinvention and cinematic redemption. While Airbender isn’t really high-concept (it’s based on a Nickelodeon cartoon, after all) the conceit of “Elemental Nations” of Fire, Water, Air and Earth at war is interesting enough  to put it up on the radar. But will it connect? The mystical martial arts Asian genre feels spent and the overly cliched voiceover doesn’t help in that regard, but I have confidence in M. Night’s skills and like the trailer’s tease.

C’mon ol’ buddy, don’t let us down.