This is BlackMonkey, ready to critique The Last Airbender (The Movie).
I just saw this movie with my brother yesterday for the first time on Netflix, and oh my, it wasn't Avatar. It felt like a joke really. Like a bunch of cheesy kids putting on a goofy play for their parents. It was bad acting, bad cast, and bad story. I got a couple laughs here and there, but it wasn't for the things M. Night Shyamalan was intending. When Zuko comes to The Southern Water Tribe for the first time, with his afro and scratch - I mean scar on his eye, and then just blurts out, "I am Prince Zuko," I seriously started cracking up. I fell off my couch! This movie was so bad it was funny! And by the time it was half over, I said, "Why am I still watching this?" But I wanted to see the whole thing so I could criticize the whole thing, so here I go. Prepare for a long review.
So, The first things that could have possibly went wrong (which did) was the cast. It was just so bad... Aang was this little tubby bald kid with no expression, and he couldn't even pronounce his own name right! Katara was just... not Katara. She didn't even have her hair loopies! And Sokka, Sokka was terrible! He didn't crack a joke the whole movie, and was as stern and serious as could be. Since when has Sokka been saying things like, "We must go on to play our part in ending this war," or "I have to protect you Katara, because your my sister." And it just got worse with Zuko. First of all, Zuko has never had an afro. Ever. He had an ackward ponytail and super long hair, but never an afro. And his scar wasn't even a scar. It was a scratch near his eye that you could only see when the light was on it. Eero, I mean Iroh, had dreadlocks. Dreadlocks! And he wasn't tubby! That covers the major characters, but other complete mess-ups were Zhao, Azula, Gyatso, Ozai, Pakku, and well... everyone. And Momo. I couldn't forget him...
They could have made that all up with a good story. No, a great story. Well, they came out with a horrible, and I mean horrible story. It was really bad. Though, it's not all M. Night Shyamalan's fault. Only most of it is. Book 1, all combined together, was more than 8 hours long. Now, they had to fit that into a movie that was less than 2 hours long. Figure it out. So Shyamalan's approach is to cut out every possible character development scene there is, so only story scenes are left. And the movie is a good length. The only downfall happens to be that the characters are bland, expressionless, and stupid. Yup, I'll say it. Stupid. With this shortened, plain, movie that was left, he completely ruined every scene that had potential, and messed with every good tradition of the Avatar Universe.
What else can I add? The absurdity that when someone from The Fire Nation makes fire everyone goes nuts? Why a lot of the names of characters are idiotically pronounced? Or the fact that the whole entire movie is an emotionless, shallow, mistake? I felt as if M. Night Shyamalan planned out this movie by reading an Avatar: The Last Airbender Wikipedia summary or something. Everything that could have possibly been done to ruin an incredible television show, they did. The Last Airbender was a truly, terrible movie. And I mean that in the most sincere way possible.
--BlackMonkey (talk · contribs · editcount · logs), signing out! - 20:11, July 26, 2011 (UTC)