The Minority Report - "The Last Airbender" (2010)

“He will need you... and we all need him.”
I’m going to go ahead and start off by saying that I am a big fan of the original series. The thing with movies that are based off of something is that they will not be an exact replica. Keeping that in mind, when I went to see it, I forgot all about the television series and began with a blank slate. I had also heard for about a week (because movies come out a week later where I am currently) that the movie was absolutely terrible from everyone and everywhere (from friends to rotten tomatoes). I still held some level of hope, though.

Like the series, the movie is about an alternate earth where there are 4 nations that represent the 4 elements (Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water). Each nation practices different martial arts styles that make some of the people able to control their respective element, which is called “bending”. Legend tells of the avatar, who has the unique ability to master all 4 elements and rotates through all nations in an infinite reincarnation loop. One hundred years ago, he was born to the Air nation; that was also the time when the Fire nation decided to launch an attack to take over the other nations. When the world needed him most, though, the avatar disappeared. Now, one hundred years later, he has reappeared out of an ice sheet. Aang (Noah Ringer), the new avatar, along with the people that found him—Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone)—have set out to liberate the nations from the grip of Fire and learn all 4 elements.

So…here we go. The movie wasn’t terrible, but it was bad. That is because of 3 main reasons: the script, the acting, and the editing. I had no problem with the camera angles and shots, as they were modeled after many of the scenes from the series and were pretty artful. What was terrible was the way that the movie was put together. Scenes would come and go with barely any cohesion. Only near the end was the editing bearable. Also, the bad acting coupled with the terrible script that only allowed for one-dimensional characters made the movie somewhat hard to watch. The only part of the movie that was fun to watch was the fighting and “bending” scenes because of the fantastic special effects created by Industrial Light and Magic. This movie is definitely like watching paint dry on a wall filled with ancient martial arts drawings and weird hybrid animals.

By Kulguy