Roger Ebert on the Last Airbender

[MrMatt]

Go figure, a shitty director adapts a shitty anime into a shitty movie and it gets bad reviews...

LMAO seriously though, awful concept, a director that is out of his element, and it turns out bad?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Well I am going to go and see it. A lot of these movies lately IMO are casting kids too young for the roles. Kick Ass, Mindy was just too young. The Karate Kid was a really nice surprise, good movie, but even in that one I felt the kids were too young for the characters. In the original Karate Kid those kids were much older. And when I saw the clips for this, that is the first thing I found odd was the youth of the main character. I know a lot of these movies are based around books and comics, but the youth translated to the screen just doesn't appear to be working well.

pretty sure that was the whole point there...a tiny little girl chopping people up and swearing like a sailor was excellent entertainment

 

[zinfamous]

Shamalamadingdong got reamed today by NPR's summer film panel. And not just for this flick--but they digressed a good bit into his career and took their time to chart his career of ever-increasing disappointment.

pretty much what has been repeated here, but in a very erudite and snarky fashion.

 

[Bignate603]

I saw the movie today, I'm a big fan of the series so even if it was going to be bad I was still going to see it. Even with low expectations I was shocked how terrible it was. The acting was non-existent, there was no emotion. All the humor from the series was gone. Worst of all, the plot is incomprehensible if you are not very familiar with the animated series. They only spend a few seconds on major plot points but long periods on things that don't matter. It felt like a huge amount of material that would have filled in all the gaps had just gotten cut out at the last second. It made the movie feel completely disjointed.

Also, somebody needs to teach Shymalan how to do closeups. The camera must have been an inch away from the actors' noses during some shots. If the actor is talking it's usually good to have the camera pulled back far enough to get more than 1/3 of their face on the screen.

 

[TheToOTaLL]

Cliff notes (SPOILERS)



























- 6 hour Book 1 (after you remove the commercials) down to 1hr 45min, so you're going to lose some plot. Now you know how Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse fans (aka my wife) feel.
- A lot of cheezy acting. When you get a lot of no-name actors trying to act it's going to fail. Shamalamadingdong FOUND Noah Ringer from a video off the internet (demonstrating his martial arts experience), so he new to all of this.
- Yes, there are a lot of karate-esque scenes that could have been removed to introduce more of the plot. Remember that "bending" is losely based on some real-world martial arts styles: Waterbenders (tai chi chuan), Earthbenders (Hung Ga kung fu, for the most part), Firebenders (Northern Shaolin kung fu) and Airbenders (baguazhang).
- They chose to stick with the tradition pronunciation of some of the names, so stop freaking out about Aang (A-ng) being pounced Aang (O-ng).
- They completely removed the love interest between Aang and Katara. Again, going back to the 6 hour thing.
- They completely dumbed down the last 30 minutes in comparison to the series. Was pretty pissed off.

In a nutshell, this 3 part trilogy WILL BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE BOX OFFICE.

Why?

Because of all the kids that watch it, and the parents that have sat and have inconsequently watched it with them, will take them to see it in the theaters - this being one of them.

Hopefully they get book 2 right, because there's a lot of pretty cool stuff in there. They better not dumb down one of my favorite characters, Toph. Will be interested to see who they cast in her roll.

 

[xSauronx]

Cliff notes (SPOILERS)



























- 6 hour Book 1 (after you remove the commercials) down to 1hr 45min, so you're going to lose some plot. Now you know how Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse fans (aka my wife) feel.
- A lot of cheezy acting. When you get a lot of no-name actors trying to act it's going to fail. Shamalamadingdong FOUND Noah Ringer from a video off the internet (demonstrating his martial arts experience), so he new to all of this.
- Yes, there are a lot of karate-esque scenes that could have been removed to introduce more of the plot. Remember that "bending" is losely based on some real-world martial arts styles: Waterbenders (tai chi chuan), Earthbenders (Hung Ga kung fu, for the most part), Firebenders (Northern Shaolin kung fu) and Airbenders (baguazhang).
- They chose to stick with the tradition pronunciation of some of the names, so stop freaking out about Aang (A-ng) being pounced Aang (O-ng).
- They completely removed the love interest between Aang and Katara. Again, going back to the 6 hour thing.
- They completely dumbed down the last 30 minutes in comparison to the series. Was pretty pissed off.

In a nutshell, this 3 part trilogy WILL BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE BOX OFFICE.

Why?

Because of all the kids that watch it, and the parents that have sat and have inconsequently watched it with them, will take them to see it in the theaters - this being one of them.

Hopefully they get book 2 right, because there's a lot of pretty cool stuff in there. They better not dumb down one of my favorite characters, Toph. Will be interested to see who they cast in her roll.

interesting take...im not sure about taking the kids. i can just rewatch the series with them on netflix streaming anytime, id rather wait and see despicable me with them.

 

[mizzou]

should have been done by ramey

 

[SilverThief]

I had high hopes for this movie as well. Save your money. Its a total POS.
M. Night Shamalam at his finest...again.

 

[dud]

So for those who went to see the movie ... how did it feel wasting 2 hours of your life and the cost to get in?

Also, I thought this review was funny:

"Battlefield Earth has a new rival for the title of "worst-film-of-the-last-20-years."

A movie has to be Awesomely bad in every way to be compared to Battlefield Earth.

 

[guyver01]

- They chose to stick with the tradition pronunciation of some of the names, so stop freaking out about Aang (A-ng) being pounced Aang (O-ng).

"traditional" ? this wasn't a japanese show that was americanized. Avatar was a home-grown american cartoon. There is no "traditional" pronounciation for Aang...

If you're going to use the source material... use it... don't ignore it.

And Aang's name wasn't the only one they messed up... they messed up Sokka and Iroh too.

 

[classy]

Just got back. It was terrible. It was slow, bad acting, really bad. The characters were lifeless and the story was choppy and all over the place. D- at best. Not worth paying to go see, the dvd isn't worth buying or renting. Terrible film.

 

[DangerAardvark]

2006 Lady In Water (5.8) - no idea how it has a rating that high but whatever, it fits the trend

I think wet, naked Bryce Howard gives your movie some extra credit.

 

[Cogman]

Ah, no matter what the material given, Shamalamadingdong will screw it up. The cartoon series really wasn't that bad. I died a little when I heard who the director would be.

 

[Pliablemoose]

He cast Caucasians in the roles of all of the good guys and actors with darker skin as the bad guys...

Oh snap.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Wow, the big July 4 movie is a flaming belly flop. Wow. So, Predators is what we have to hope to pick us out of this movie hell hole? Wow.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I saw the movie today, I'm a big fan of the series so even if it was going to be bad I was still going to see it. Even with low expectations I was shocked how terrible it was. The acting was non-existent, there was no emotion. All the humor from the series was gone. Worst of all, the plot is incomprehensible if you are not very familiar with the animated series. They only spend a few seconds on major plot points but long periods on things that don't matter. It felt like a huge amount of material that would have filled in all the gaps had just gotten cut out at the last second. It made the movie feel completely disjointed.

Also, somebody needs to teach Shymalan how to do closeups. The camera must have been an inch away from the actors' noses during some shots. If the actor is talking it's usually good to have the camera pulled back far enough to get more than 1/3 of their face on the screen.

As someone that has never rad the Harry Potter books, and tried to watch the first one when it hit theaters, I know what you mean. Harry Potter is utter crap. Those that love it have read the book and those that think it sucks never read the books. Anyways, Harrpotter (the first one), go watch it again. The slowest story ever told in a theater.