What happened to The Last Airbender (spoilers ahead)

I could care less about the casting choices in terms of race that so many people complained about. I thought it was fine and in terms of finding people who look like the cartoon versions and knew their martial arts, Shyamalan did a decent job. What he failed at doing when looking for actors was checking to see if they can actually act and react with one another. The actors looked like they were uncomfortable in their roles and in just about 90% of their dialogue came off wooden and strained. There was absolutely no chemistry between the characters. This is where the cartoon is successful. You feel these guys becoming a family. From the moment Aang opens his eyes, he has a crush on Katara. The movie does not go into any development with this. And Sokka is supposed to provide unintentional comedy to the group, but instead he is a serious older brother. The best acting came only from Shaun Toub (Uncle Iroh) and it’s a shame his lines were limited to only a dozen. The fluidity in the scenes and connections between the characters were seriously missing.

And this brings me to my second point, the script. It felt like Shyamalan wanted to tell as much of the cartoon story as he could in the short time frame, so he cut and added scenes from different episodes. I’ll give him props for trying to remain true to the cartoon, even if some of the scenes were a bit backwards, such as the Northern Air Temple having the room of statues…which turned out to have little significance other than to capture Aang. That’s three episodes there, wrapped into one. But for the most part, because he was trying to incorporate as much of the cartoon in the film, the fluidity between each scene was never made. It felt incredibly static and I think adding the subtitle of where the current locations as the travelers were making their way up to the Northern Water Tribe just reinforces this. Without them and without Katara narrating what they were doing, we would have very little clue as to what was going on. The scenes needed to be fleshed out and they needed to have some serious interaction between the actors. Most of the dialogue in each scene was left to just a couple of lines before moving on. The audience had no opportunity to connect to the characters, because we were not allowed to see their personalities and watch them develop.

One thing I’m incredibly surprised didn’t make it into the film was Suki. I know they casted her and even a version of the official site showed her with her fans. I must have blinked, because I could not find her. And fans of the show know that she is a strong and important character in the later books. My only guess is that Shyamalan wants to save her for book two, which focuses on the Earth Kingdom. But at this rate, I can’t imagine studios would make a second book.

I will say the two best aspects of the film for me were the special effects of the bending and the opening sequence which mimicked part of the opening credits of the tv show. That opening sequence got me so excited for the rest of the movie, but alas, it was the best scene of the entire film and I was incredibly let down for the remainder of the film.

Overall, I’m going to have to give this film a 3/10. And I think that’s being generous.