review: the last airbender
WHY!? That's my review right there. Just why? This film, and I use that term very very loosely, is one of the worst things my eyes have ever been insulted by. My initial reaction on watching it was that of horror and disbelief. In fact I still half hope that this is some kind of fevered nightmare as I lay dying, kinda like Eternal Sonata, except I like Eternal Sonata. That's right I would rather be about to die than believe this 'movie' actually happened. M. Night Shyamalan has corrupted one of my favorite tv series into a foul puddle of bile. So without further delay brace yourselves and lets look at the last airbender.
Just to let you know, since this film hasn't come out on this side of the pond I am watching a rubbish Internet copy so all I have to say for the effects are they look like they could be really decent on an official copy. To be frank I love the opening up to and including the title card, it does give an honest feeling of suspense until the title floats on screen to a soundtrack that would be right at home as the overworld theme for a final fantasy game. At this point I was thinking "No way can this be as bad as they said, surely." than the shots of the for benders (Pakku, some earth bender who I don't know, Azula and Aang) then was when I got really exited. Not sure with the bad quality if they pick up on the early bird cameos in the film and used the actors for the respective characters but either why it's an awesome shot for shot recreation.
So the text crawl and backstory narration starts about how it was all peace and rainbows when the avatar was around (which we know from book 3 is not true but this is Katara's POV so I'll let that one slide) and how - wait did she just say avatar with A long a at the start? Girl it's A like avenue not armour, never mind probably just the actress. The film proper opens on a shot of Katara floating a ball of water the size of her head and accidentally dropping it on Sokka's head. At this point I'm going to mention I wont be ranting about every change to the plot ie the two being in a canoe was probably a bit unfeasible for the film so I'm fine with that change, what I will complain about however are stupid changes but more about that later.
A remarkably dry Sokka tells his sister not to bend around him as he always gets wet and they move off with Katara's narration expositing about the war and how her dad's away fighting and her mother was killed when she was younger. She does this with as much emotion as if she was presenting a school report on broccoli even though we find out in book 3 she hates her dad almost as much as Ed from FMA for leaving them. When she finishes for now Sokka fails hunting wise but instead of throwing his hands up and making an over the top snarky comment about how the universe just hates him he whines like the Jasper clone he is. Look, Jacky, your performance is making me wish Jesse McCartney got the role! How! Is! That! Possible!?
So the siblings find Aang's iceberg prison and Katara sets him free with Sokka's - what the hell is that thing? It's like a question mark shaped piece of wood. What, did they think a club AND a boomerang were too complicated for the modern audience? So we see the quite frankly very well done Appa, well we see his but any way, and Aang lying on the floor and the film thankfully spares us Sokka and Katara's trip back to their village. Insted we get a scene between Aang and Katara that makes me think they got George Lucas in to wright the romantic dialogue.
But the fire nation sweeps in to save us before they start talking about sand - er, I mean ice? Whatever, Sokka bursts in on the two and says they are under attack but Katara soothes Aang's worries by saying there's nothing wrong. Yes the force that wiped out all the air nomads and has taken over a decent amount of the world is no problem for the small fishing village defended by one incompetent bender and a useless warrior, OK it's Zuko but she doesn't know that. Personaly I liked the white skull face plates of the cartton fir nation but that's not such a big - Wait Katara just called her brother Soak-er, girl you need to learn how to speak.
Zuko now enters the scene and for once he seams to have actually looked at the source material to get an idea of the character and, credit where credit's due, gives it a damn good go, it just doesn't quite land for me. Then again that's like saying "This five star restaurant just doesn't get the food the same as mummy used to do, but it is better than that burger joint in between the dump and the nuclear power plant." Also considering I associate whether Zuko is good or not with his hair style seeing him evil and with hair is just weird. So anyway Zuko examines all the elderly as he as yet doesn't know Aang is still only 12 rather than 112 (minor niggle here: it's Gram-Gram not grandma but she only gets a cameo so it isn't important.).
Zuko eventually finds out Aang is an airbender and as such is most likely the avatar. Threatening the village if he doesn't comply Zuko gets Aang to come with him onto his boat and a random grunt does a spinning kick Ken would be proud off in order to firebend a small trail to intimidate the tribe. Now there's another good point; why does every time someone bends, no matter how small, preceded by this long string of show pseudo martial arts moves? In the show Toph could bend by stamping and Aang once bent by sneezing. It's like in bullet proof monk when Seann William Scott faces up to Chow Yun-Fat with all his showy moves and Yun-Fat kicks his ass while hardly moving.
Next we have Katara getting Sokka to go help Aang by convincing him that he is their responsibility (ARC WORDS!) but he just whines about how they would need a miracle to get to the ship. Now the Sokka I know would be like "Oh yeah I'll just swim after them, or maybe you where going to flap your arms and fly us over." you know what this is so NOT Sokka that from now on he will be akkoS. Said miricle apears in the form of Appa who for some strange reason has chicken feet, not bison feet which would fit a flying bison quite well but chicken feet. That stands out as riduclus in a universe with turtle-ducks and cancles out what I said earlier about him being well done.
Now we meet Iroh (No one was going to live up Mako, god rest his soul, so I will not complain about him.) who does some funky test to prove Aang is the avatar. Aang escapes using his airbending, which the two guys who have spent the better part of their lives tracking an airbender took NO precautions against.
OK Aang just got his own name wrong, it's meant to be like the start of angle, this makes me dread that Katara's actress was speaking fine but the director told the cast the wrong pronunciation. So Aang and crew head back to the air temple and the isn't anyone around but Aang is running around calling peoples names to no effect. Gee I wounder where this scene is go- yeah pile of bones, I called it. But then can't fault them here since that was in the toon as well. Katara fills him in on what's what but Aang acts like the mature 12 year old that he is, calls her a liar and then goes into the avatar state.
Oh hey we get a look at the spirit world and all the "fantastic landscapes" Gram-Gram mentioned earlier and - it looks exactly like a misty forest. Anyway the point of this scene is to show of the dragon that has replaced Roku as Aang's spirit advisor and show that Katara can pull him out of the avatar sate with the power of awkward and poorly written love.
Cut to Zuko and he is being invited by admiral Zhao to eat aboard his ship. Zhao being the jerkass he is then goads Zuko and hits him where it hurts by calling him out on his banishment till the young prince runs off.
But enough of those boring characters who are actually at least similar to their source material and let's look in on Aang, Katara and akkoS. They land and start setting up camp when - Hey! Hey Appa, where you going? Why are you flying off? What are you just going to circle around till they call you? Was it really that hard to just show him lying in the background? As I was saying this adaptations version of Haru, I think anyway, runs up chased by fire nation goons who have taken over the city and are imprisoning all benders. Here we see that in this universe the mooks are total pussies since they say, and I quote "He was bending tiny stones at us from behind a tree. It really hurt." then 2 minutes later one almost gets pushed over by Katara when he was already in a fighting stance and saw her coming. We're meant to believe these guys were the ones who currently have most of the world under their control?
Plot hole time: in the episode the earthbenders were on a metal rig in the ocean and so physically couldn't fight back, here they are just blockaded into a small area and don't fight back against five of the, previously established pussies, because, I don't know because M. Night Shyamalan decrees it so. Also we have now seen all four bending styles and they are all exactly the same in the source material each was based off a different martial art discipline and were very distinct. Water = flowing movements, Air = sweeping movements, Earth = strong stances and pushing movements (other than Toph and by extension Aang in which case it was mantis style), Fire = vicious punches and kicks. Here they all look like waving their arms around in the general direction of the element and moves that would look right at home kung fu dunk.
OK blah blah blah, the day is saved by the backstreet boys' mastery of earthbending and akkoS' weapon somehow still functions as a boomerang even though boomerangs are shaped the way they are since that is a shape that works as a boomerang (also useless for any fights bigger than one-on-one since they don't return when they hit something)
And so 35 minutes into the film we meet fire lord Ozai who is about as menacing as a weiner dog. Mostly because he's just there walking around not sat on his throne on a pedestal with his face in shadow because of the waist high wall of fire in front of him.
but enough plot it's time for fairly needless Zuko back story. OK it's a good back story as back stories go but so much more could have been done with the time. (pronunciation error number 7: should be agni kai not agni ki.) and they never mention why it was his father he has to fight and not the general he sassed which could be done by saying "as it was his father war room he had spoken out of turn in." Long story short Zuko got burned in the fight and banished until he can find the avatar.
Back to Aang who goes off at night to visit another air temple and gets captuered again. This time by Zaho who actually chains him up so all four of his limbs are pulled taught. But not to worry a man in a blue mask shows up and frees him using a pair of twin dao swords (AKA the coolest weapons ever!) and they make a break for it. Now in the original the pair used a load of ladders to pole vault their way on to the wall and from there slide down and escape into the forest. The film however is just a huge fight scene with the blue spirit using Aang as a hostage to get let out since if he kills him the hunt starts over again. Oh and surprise surprise the blue spirit is Zuko but Aang just leaves him unconscious in the forest.
So having skipped a load of episodes that weren't exactly plot import we get to the northern water tribe and again the effects are really quite good I must admit. The ensuing scene of the government preparing for the fire nation attack they mention to put out as many fires as possible but in the show firebending was perfectly capable of creating fire out of nothing hence why Jeong Jeong was so big on control when he tried to teach Aang. According to the narration akkoS and the princess of the tribe, Yue, became friends straight away (I would have said love at first sight but still...) due to time restraints however we never see them together more than 5 or 6 minutes. But the important bit here is that Yue has white hair because she was lowered into the spirit pool when she was younger to avoid her dying just after her birth.
Zuko, having stowed away aboard Zhao's ship sneaks off to look for the avatar while the attack is going on but is blocked by Katara's pitiful defense. After slapping her down he takes the meditating Aang and runs off. The attack begins but Zhao and Iroh go off since Zhao has a scroll that says where the spirit pool is so he can kill the moon spirit and take away waterbending. However the tension is immediately lost by cutting back to Zuko who Aang is avoiding him by walking right behind him and leaning away when he looks, you know like Bugs Bunny used to do. but these hijinks are interrupted by Katara freezing Zuko in a block of icebut leaving his head free. The group runs off with Aang saying "We could have been friends you know." which would have made more sense in the blue spirit scene as that was where it came from in show.
OK films almost over so I'm gonna skim over this quickly. Zhao kills the moon spirit removing waterbending but Iroh tells Yue that she can give her life to bring back the moon spirit. akkoS whines some more but this time it's actually the right time for it. Zuko and Zhao face off but Iroh convinces his nephew to just walk away. Zhao is killed by a group of waterbenders rather than a vengeful ocean spirit. That leads me to another point, in the finale Aang appears perfectly able to control the avatar state but he didn't actually do that till the end of book 3 and a huge part of his character arc is how many people he has killed while in the avatar state and out of control. So long story short fire nation repelled everyone happy.
But wait there's more fire lord Ozai talking to a shadowy figure about Souzin's comet that makes firebenders nigh unbeatable and how it is here turn to try and capture the avatar. So here we have to reveal of Azula and my god is she hot and genuinely creepy.
Summing up: The acting is horrible, Summer Bishil and to a lesser extent Dev Patel were the only ones who were any good. Momo and Appa are basically cut when in the show they were characters in their own right. Half the names and terms were pronounced wrong. There was way too much exposition but it was necessary to fit 20 episode into an hour and a half. I really hope the sequel doesn't get made so M. Night Shyamalan doesn't get the chance to screw over Toph and Azula (my fav characters)
But on the plus side a new sequel to the original series has just been announced and it looks glorious, look forward to 2011 for that.
Just to let you know, since this film hasn't come out on this side of the pond I am watching a rubbish Internet copy so all I have to say for the effects are they look like they could be really decent on an official copy. To be frank I love the opening up to and including the title card, it does give an honest feeling of suspense until the title floats on screen to a soundtrack that would be right at home as the overworld theme for a final fantasy game. At this point I was thinking "No way can this be as bad as they said, surely." than the shots of the for benders (Pakku, some earth bender who I don't know, Azula and Aang) then was when I got really exited. Not sure with the bad quality if they pick up on the early bird cameos in the film and used the actors for the respective characters but either why it's an awesome shot for shot recreation.
So the text crawl and backstory narration starts about how it was all peace and rainbows when the avatar was around (which we know from book 3 is not true but this is Katara's POV so I'll let that one slide) and how - wait did she just say avatar with A long a at the start? Girl it's A like avenue not armour, never mind probably just the actress. The film proper opens on a shot of Katara floating a ball of water the size of her head and accidentally dropping it on Sokka's head. At this point I'm going to mention I wont be ranting about every change to the plot ie the two being in a canoe was probably a bit unfeasible for the film so I'm fine with that change, what I will complain about however are stupid changes but more about that later.
A remarkably dry Sokka tells his sister not to bend around him as he always gets wet and they move off with Katara's narration expositing about the war and how her dad's away fighting and her mother was killed when she was younger. She does this with as much emotion as if she was presenting a school report on broccoli even though we find out in book 3 she hates her dad almost as much as Ed from FMA for leaving them. When she finishes for now Sokka fails hunting wise but instead of throwing his hands up and making an over the top snarky comment about how the universe just hates him he whines like the Jasper clone he is. Look, Jacky, your performance is making me wish Jesse McCartney got the role! How! Is! That! Possible!?
So the siblings find Aang's iceberg prison and Katara sets him free with Sokka's - what the hell is that thing? It's like a question mark shaped piece of wood. What, did they think a club AND a boomerang were too complicated for the modern audience? So we see the quite frankly very well done Appa, well we see his but any way, and Aang lying on the floor and the film thankfully spares us Sokka and Katara's trip back to their village. Insted we get a scene between Aang and Katara that makes me think they got George Lucas in to wright the romantic dialogue.
But the fire nation sweeps in to save us before they start talking about sand - er, I mean ice? Whatever, Sokka bursts in on the two and says they are under attack but Katara soothes Aang's worries by saying there's nothing wrong. Yes the force that wiped out all the air nomads and has taken over a decent amount of the world is no problem for the small fishing village defended by one incompetent bender and a useless warrior, OK it's Zuko but she doesn't know that. Personaly I liked the white skull face plates of the cartton fir nation but that's not such a big - Wait Katara just called her brother Soak-er, girl you need to learn how to speak.
Zuko now enters the scene and for once he seams to have actually looked at the source material to get an idea of the character and, credit where credit's due, gives it a damn good go, it just doesn't quite land for me. Then again that's like saying "This five star restaurant just doesn't get the food the same as mummy used to do, but it is better than that burger joint in between the dump and the nuclear power plant." Also considering I associate whether Zuko is good or not with his hair style seeing him evil and with hair is just weird. So anyway Zuko examines all the elderly as he as yet doesn't know Aang is still only 12 rather than 112 (minor niggle here: it's Gram-Gram not grandma but she only gets a cameo so it isn't important.).
Zuko eventually finds out Aang is an airbender and as such is most likely the avatar. Threatening the village if he doesn't comply Zuko gets Aang to come with him onto his boat and a random grunt does a spinning kick Ken would be proud off in order to firebend a small trail to intimidate the tribe. Now there's another good point; why does every time someone bends, no matter how small, preceded by this long string of show pseudo martial arts moves? In the show Toph could bend by stamping and Aang once bent by sneezing. It's like in bullet proof monk when Seann William Scott faces up to Chow Yun-Fat with all his showy moves and Yun-Fat kicks his ass while hardly moving.
Next we have Katara getting Sokka to go help Aang by convincing him that he is their responsibility (ARC WORDS!) but he just whines about how they would need a miracle to get to the ship. Now the Sokka I know would be like "Oh yeah I'll just swim after them, or maybe you where going to flap your arms and fly us over." you know what this is so NOT Sokka that from now on he will be akkoS. Said miricle apears in the form of Appa who for some strange reason has chicken feet, not bison feet which would fit a flying bison quite well but chicken feet. That stands out as riduclus in a universe with turtle-ducks and cancles out what I said earlier about him being well done.
Now we meet Iroh (No one was going to live up Mako, god rest his soul, so I will not complain about him.) who does some funky test to prove Aang is the avatar. Aang escapes using his airbending, which the two guys who have spent the better part of their lives tracking an airbender took NO precautions against.
OK Aang just got his own name wrong, it's meant to be like the start of angle, this makes me dread that Katara's actress was speaking fine but the director told the cast the wrong pronunciation. So Aang and crew head back to the air temple and the isn't anyone around but Aang is running around calling peoples names to no effect. Gee I wounder where this scene is go- yeah pile of bones, I called it. But then can't fault them here since that was in the toon as well. Katara fills him in on what's what but Aang acts like the mature 12 year old that he is, calls her a liar and then goes into the avatar state.
Oh hey we get a look at the spirit world and all the "fantastic landscapes" Gram-Gram mentioned earlier and - it looks exactly like a misty forest. Anyway the point of this scene is to show of the dragon that has replaced Roku as Aang's spirit advisor and show that Katara can pull him out of the avatar sate with the power of awkward and poorly written love.
Cut to Zuko and he is being invited by admiral Zhao to eat aboard his ship. Zhao being the jerkass he is then goads Zuko and hits him where it hurts by calling him out on his banishment till the young prince runs off.
But enough of those boring characters who are actually at least similar to their source material and let's look in on Aang, Katara and akkoS. They land and start setting up camp when - Hey! Hey Appa, where you going? Why are you flying off? What are you just going to circle around till they call you? Was it really that hard to just show him lying in the background? As I was saying this adaptations version of Haru, I think anyway, runs up chased by fire nation goons who have taken over the city and are imprisoning all benders. Here we see that in this universe the mooks are total pussies since they say, and I quote "He was bending tiny stones at us from behind a tree. It really hurt." then 2 minutes later one almost gets pushed over by Katara when he was already in a fighting stance and saw her coming. We're meant to believe these guys were the ones who currently have most of the world under their control?
Plot hole time: in the episode the earthbenders were on a metal rig in the ocean and so physically couldn't fight back, here they are just blockaded into a small area and don't fight back against five of the, previously established pussies, because, I don't know because M. Night Shyamalan decrees it so. Also we have now seen all four bending styles and they are all exactly the same in the source material each was based off a different martial art discipline and were very distinct. Water = flowing movements, Air = sweeping movements, Earth = strong stances and pushing movements (other than Toph and by extension Aang in which case it was mantis style), Fire = vicious punches and kicks. Here they all look like waving their arms around in the general direction of the element and moves that would look right at home kung fu dunk.
OK blah blah blah, the day is saved by the backstreet boys' mastery of earthbending and akkoS' weapon somehow still functions as a boomerang even though boomerangs are shaped the way they are since that is a shape that works as a boomerang (also useless for any fights bigger than one-on-one since they don't return when they hit something)
And so 35 minutes into the film we meet fire lord Ozai who is about as menacing as a weiner dog. Mostly because he's just there walking around not sat on his throne on a pedestal with his face in shadow because of the waist high wall of fire in front of him.
but enough plot it's time for fairly needless Zuko back story. OK it's a good back story as back stories go but so much more could have been done with the time. (pronunciation error number 7: should be agni kai not agni ki.) and they never mention why it was his father he has to fight and not the general he sassed which could be done by saying "as it was his father war room he had spoken out of turn in." Long story short Zuko got burned in the fight and banished until he can find the avatar.
Back to Aang who goes off at night to visit another air temple and gets captuered again. This time by Zaho who actually chains him up so all four of his limbs are pulled taught. But not to worry a man in a blue mask shows up and frees him using a pair of twin dao swords (AKA the coolest weapons ever!) and they make a break for it. Now in the original the pair used a load of ladders to pole vault their way on to the wall and from there slide down and escape into the forest. The film however is just a huge fight scene with the blue spirit using Aang as a hostage to get let out since if he kills him the hunt starts over again. Oh and surprise surprise the blue spirit is Zuko but Aang just leaves him unconscious in the forest.
So having skipped a load of episodes that weren't exactly plot import we get to the northern water tribe and again the effects are really quite good I must admit. The ensuing scene of the government preparing for the fire nation attack they mention to put out as many fires as possible but in the show firebending was perfectly capable of creating fire out of nothing hence why Jeong Jeong was so big on control when he tried to teach Aang. According to the narration akkoS and the princess of the tribe, Yue, became friends straight away (I would have said love at first sight but still...) due to time restraints however we never see them together more than 5 or 6 minutes. But the important bit here is that Yue has white hair because she was lowered into the spirit pool when she was younger to avoid her dying just after her birth.
Zuko, having stowed away aboard Zhao's ship sneaks off to look for the avatar while the attack is going on but is blocked by Katara's pitiful defense. After slapping her down he takes the meditating Aang and runs off. The attack begins but Zhao and Iroh go off since Zhao has a scroll that says where the spirit pool is so he can kill the moon spirit and take away waterbending. However the tension is immediately lost by cutting back to Zuko who Aang is avoiding him by walking right behind him and leaning away when he looks, you know like Bugs Bunny used to do. but these hijinks are interrupted by Katara freezing Zuko in a block of icebut leaving his head free. The group runs off with Aang saying "We could have been friends you know." which would have made more sense in the blue spirit scene as that was where it came from in show.
OK films almost over so I'm gonna skim over this quickly. Zhao kills the moon spirit removing waterbending but Iroh tells Yue that she can give her life to bring back the moon spirit. akkoS whines some more but this time it's actually the right time for it. Zuko and Zhao face off but Iroh convinces his nephew to just walk away. Zhao is killed by a group of waterbenders rather than a vengeful ocean spirit. That leads me to another point, in the finale Aang appears perfectly able to control the avatar state but he didn't actually do that till the end of book 3 and a huge part of his character arc is how many people he has killed while in the avatar state and out of control. So long story short fire nation repelled everyone happy.
But wait there's more fire lord Ozai talking to a shadowy figure about Souzin's comet that makes firebenders nigh unbeatable and how it is here turn to try and capture the avatar. So here we have to reveal of Azula and my god is she hot and genuinely creepy.
Summing up: The acting is horrible, Summer Bishil and to a lesser extent Dev Patel were the only ones who were any good. Momo and Appa are basically cut when in the show they were characters in their own right. Half the names and terms were pronounced wrong. There was way too much exposition but it was necessary to fit 20 episode into an hour and a half. I really hope the sequel doesn't get made so M. Night Shyamalan doesn't get the chance to screw over Toph and Azula (my fav characters)
But on the plus side a new sequel to the original series has just been announced and it looks glorious, look forward to 2011 for that.