simplerich

I’m going to assume you’ve seen the cartoon. There are four seasons of the cartoon on Nickelodeon: Water, Earth, Air, and Fire. The movie started with a text crawl very much like Star Wars. Then there was a the normal introduction where the silhouettes of people did the karate, tai-chi, kung-fu or whatever moves as the names of the element were spoken aloud. Just like the cartoons that happened. It really settled me in as a fan of the cartoon. It set the tone… it made me think, “Ah yes… it will be loyal to the cartoon!”

The movie wasn’t all four seasons of the cartoon from Nickelodeon. It was just the first season and it was about an hour and a half long. So obviously some story lines were cut out and some side stories were cut. The actors looked like themselves so that was good. The scar on Zuko, the Fire prince’s, face was barely noticeable. That’s the only quibble I could find in the actors. Their acting was… good enough. Aang had a pouty lip. I guess there were two things and they were physical attributes. Seriously, his lip was always pouty looking. He looked like he’d been punched in the bottom of the mouth or maybe stung by bees or something. OK, crap. There were three things. Uncle was skinny and serious and didn’t seem as funny as wise, funny uncle had in the cartoon. That brings me to my biggest difference in the movie vs. the cartoon.

You know how Aang is 12 and an airbender? You know how airbenders are supposed to be pranksters? Fun-loving people who appear to not take things terribly seriously? They’re fun, funny. Couple that with Aang being 12 years old and you have a recipe for funny cartoons. Hiding behind ppl as they look for you, playing jokes on people, hide & seek, that sort of thing. A big part of my enjoying the cartoon was enjoying the youthful enthusiasm of the airbender. There was a lot of laughter and joy. The joy of life and living. That made it fun to watch. It made the character likeable and someone you wanted to see turn out OK. Not just physically, but mentally. You don’t want to see his joy of life hurt. In the movie though. M. Night Shazamalamadan decided one of the things he needed to cut was all the funny, fun, jokes, or joy. There were exactly two scenes that MIGHT have been reminiscent of the sort of fun-loving antics of cartoon Aang that made the show fun to watch.

You know how Katara’s brother, Sokka, and how he’s there primarily for comic relief? Always hungry, tries to eat the Appa The Flying Bison and Momo, the bat-lemur. Falls a lot? Twice he did something funny, and both times it was to fall victim to Katara’s bad water bending. She got him wet once and froze him into a block of ice once. Also, Uncle was never funny. Never did any funny stories or witty things that had a point. Just sort of a physically fit, taller, very thin Yoda. All serious trainer uncle, no funny uncle that liked to drink tea.

The bending effects were only meh. They did LOTS of the movements and motions and then something would happen really quickly and be over with. The effects were cool but too short. They could have been longer, not necessarily more spectacular. The end fight where Aang finally did his thing using the ocean to fight of the entire fire nation army by himself. That was cool. It was also done in the avatar state, also cool, and with a minimum of jumping around and arm waving… which is as it should be. For him to knock back two guys he did like 15 seconds of tai-chi, maybe tai-kwon-do… I think water was Tai-chi… movements, swung his arms around, and did a no-hands somersault just as an example. Lots of build-up, for not enough pay off. If it’d taken that long to bend the elements they should have had their butts handed to them by any relatively quick fighter. They’d be knocked out before they bent anything. (Don’t get me started on how all the earth benders ever did was pull rocks out of the ground.)

I’d give it 7.5 out of 10 stars. I enjoyed it. I liked the actors. I liked the story. I wish it hadn’t been as dry. I wish it’d been funnier. At least some funny. He was tortured. He was sad. He was grief-ridden… he wouldn’t have been any fun to be around. I hope they make more. I hope Aang (whose name isn’t pronounced the same in the movie as in the cartoons for some reason) has lip reduction surgery. Maybe they could put some of his lip fat into Uncle so he’d be fatter. A skinny Uncle was distracting.

The Movie Review: The Last Airbender by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.