Shyamalan's Last Airbender Leaves Us Out of Balance

As an admirer of the Nickelodeon show upon which The Last Airbender is based, there were a number of times in which I had to sublimate the urge to stand up and explain to the audience, “no, wait - this isn’t it at all!”  Part of what makes watching this film such a unique experience, though, is that it is very faithful adaptation of the source material – just faithful to all its most ponderous elements that are rendered absurd without the nuanced context of a longform television program.

So – in essence – the little boy Aang would try to save the Northern Water Tribe by breathlessly saying, “I need to meditate – is there a spiritual place I can go to?” but only in M. Night Shyamalan’s version does it come across as a tin-eared howler.

The Last Airbender cribs highlights from the show’s first season – how two young siblings of the water nation discover a boy in ice who is “The One.” As a reincarnation of past leaders, this boy, the Avatar, can master the four elements to move at his will. So far he only knows how to manipulate air, but this is enough to help lead oppressed villages against the dreaded Fire Nation.

The three then hop aboard their flying bison and, allegedly, have adventures. Sadly, every morsel of fun and wit is bleached from the experience. I love the characters of Aang, Katara and Sokka – but I hardly recognize them here. They are simply Girl, Boy and Boy with Arrow Tattoo. To fans of the show I say, there is no penguin sledding – and while a simple omission of one throwaway fan service moment can't kill a movie, I submit that it is the entire essence of penguin sledding that is lacking from this picture.

Other than Assif Mandvi as the superfluous villain, the performances in The Last Airbender are uniformly atrocious. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen child acting this poor. It seems as though everyone is reading the dialogue for the first time – and reading it like Jake Lloyd. It’s stunning, considering that M. Night Shyamalan made his bones directing kids so well in The Sixth Sense and Signs. The marketing material for this film may as well come out and say it: “From the director of The Happening comes The Last Airbender.”

There’s a moment in The Last Airbender when Princess Yue pleads “my people are dying, Sokka” and I instantly flashed on “our people are dying, Senator,” Padme Amidala’s very similar line from The Phantom Menace. In the halls of colossal nerd culture disappointments, I place these two films side-by-side. While the special effects and James Newton Howard’s score in Airbender are quite good, I’m not sure Airbender has a podrace or Darth Maul double-sided lightsaber to argue for its side.

I believe M. Night can ruin the world.