M. Night Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense, The Village) adaptation of the hit cartoon show Avatar: The Last Airbender (see more on the show here). The story follows the adventures of Aang, a ten-year-old successor to a long line of Avatars who must put his childhood ways aside and fight the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations!
Includes Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel as the villainous Zuko and our own Cliff Curtis as Firelord Ozai.
M. Night Shyamalan is back and this time he doesn’t have a big twist to cap off the movie. This is not the world I grew up in. Instead he’s adapting the children’s animated TV series Avatar (no, not that one). The kids will like it – I saw some recreating the big fight scenes after the screening – but there’s not much to enthuse the adults who take them along.
The story itself is a fairly generic fantasy outing and is played without much subtlety or depth. There’s a voiceover that narrates the onscreen action most of the time and some blunt dialogue delivered by wooden actors. Kids will enjoy the supernatural battles but older viewers will pick out the flaws pretty easily. For example, why do the water tribe have so much difficulty defeating their fire opponents when the battle takes place on the ocean?
Ah well, the special effects during these scenes are impressive enough and go some way to making up for the uninspiring production design – bog standard, Oriental influenced. Even if further adaptations are made, this already feels like a poor man’s Lord of the Rings.
By Andreas Heinemann, Flicks.co.nz
It may have been a cartoon but for this director ti turn it into a movie is just unbelivable. It started off well and ended well too.
Don't know why this movie seems to be getting such a bad rap.....loved the movie, and the kids loved it too - and they were avid watchers of the cartoons. Great special effects - I found this much better than the cartoons which are really slow and drawn out. Can't wait for the next one!
I watched this with my kids. Didn't even know there was a series or Characters to leave in or out like the famous Suki! So for me being a Airbender Virgin it was great and I really enjoyed it. Cheers
it SUUUUUUUUUUCKED!
There are a lot of people out there who are just spoilt rotten with what they see! Far too critical and fried imaginations! Stop watching so much TV! I loved it. Took my 7 year old son, who did point out a few differences, but he totally got invovled in the movie and it brought the cartoon to life for him. He was a big Avatar (the other Avartar) and he still enjoyed this. All those critical moaners need to learn to stop and smell the roses.
The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.
CHARLIE GATES is unimpressed by a career nosedive from director M Night Shyamalan.
Far from the catastrophe the US bewailed, but still disappointingly clunky. Notch it between Eragon (below) and Dragonslayer (above) on a sliding scale of fantasy filmmaking.
Even during the climax, the film still is struggling to introduce the world of the film and its strange rules.
Airbender, whether intentionally or not, is pegged almost exclusively to a small-fry state of mind.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 23rd Sep 2010.
Release date: September 23rd 2010.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
