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.
