Its my vacation, its a weekday, and my wife and I just walked out of an empty theatre after watching "The Last Air Bender" in 3D. A movie my wife and I have been waiting for, for at least a year. And if I could summarize in one word: disappointing.I know the anticipation and hype put this movie into out of reach standards, and Avatar is my all time favorite cartoon. How could it compare. It doesn't. It doesn't compare to most movies. All in all "AirBender" is pretty lousy. Dialog, Acting, and surprisingly... special effects were pretty poor too! I'm not going into everything that was broke or wrong... cause there is a lot. But if I could complain about one thing, its the characters...
The thing that makes the cartoon, Avatar, the last Air Bender special is character. Above all else, I have never watched a cartoon that cared more about character interaction and relationships than Avatar. If not for such rich characters, there wouldn't have been the following that lead to the movie. There is absolutely NO development of Sakka, or Katara. None! These 2 characters are used as a vessel to tell Aang's story, nothing more. And worse, M. Night still treats Sakka and Katara, like they are important, but have NO reason to be there. There is no friendship shown in the gang. No family development... not even cool moments that are fun. Aang is supposed to be a FUN person. the ONLY fun we saw was in flashback. I wanted more... I know things get cut up for movies... But cant we even see Aang smile? Just once! Or some interaction with Appa. I read that M. Night loved the characters while watching with his children... then why did he kill them?
Ok, the one shining thing about "Air Bender" was Uncle Iroh. Ok, so its not shining, its a little glossy. I would have made Uncle a little more asian... and short and fat. But they got the spirit of Uncle right. Which is more than I can say for Sakka or Katara. He was by far the best actor in the movie and he felt like he truly cared for Prince Zuko. Shaun Toub steals the movie!
I'm just sad... I was really hoping this was the new big thing. I was hoping it would catch on and maybe, just maybe it'd lead to more Avatar cartoons. (side note, the cartoon series ended beautifully, but left its self with a couple of loose strings to tie.) But, I have no idea how we are going to get 2 more "Air Bender" movies in the next couple of years.
Sorry folks, (sigh) Skip this movie.
I'm so sorry Robb (and Crystal). I know how much you were looking forward to this.
ReplyDeleteI will say that I don't think it was the cinematic atrocity that the internet frothed at the mouth for all weekend. "Hate" has become so much of a pasttime, I think people were just hungry for something to be horrible about. It's not the wost movie ever made, it's just "Meh." Lots and lots of "Meh." It's unengaging, uninspired and lacks any real depth. All of which is tragic due to just HOW FREAKING AMAZING the cartoon is.
While it's no enviable task to trim 20+ episodes into an hour and 45 minutes, the rapid story progression came at the cost of character building. Everyone was perpetually dour and that's definitely not in the spirit of Avatar.
While a critical bomb, financially it actually did quite reasonable. I'm not sure if it's enough to greenlight Book 2 but a sequel may not be enough to inject the sense of fun that this film was lacking.
On the plus side, it was enough to get my housemate interested in the show. She bought Book 1 on DVD and has been blasting through it. Seeing how staggeringly different (in tone) the series is and just how much story and character development unfolds in the series, she questioned why anyone even bothered to make a movie. It is pretty darn perfect as it is.
Oh, and I'll chime in, in agreement, about how great Shaun Toub is. In everything.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even recognize that it was the same guy who played Yinsen in Iron Man. LOVE Shaun.
You're right, its not that I hated the movie its that I didn't 'care' for it. I would've been happier if they had gotten the characters' spirits right, like they did with uncle.
ReplyDeleteYou know how I knew this movie was going to be "meh?"
ReplyDeleteM. Night Shittymovie.
Yeah, ever since the Village he has become a Scatological Midas, turning everything he touches to shit. Sorry Robb, I just knew you were not going to like it.
To be honest, I knew it was going to be bad... I did. But I had hope that it would capture the spirit of that cartoon. The saddest part, its been ruined to be made into a good film. I just hope the cartoon get the exposure it deserves.
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else the movie proved that the franchise has some viability to it, so we can probably expect Nick to put more faith behind the Legend of Korra.
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