The Last Airbender is a 2010 film directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Noah Ringer. Saying this film is bad is like saying Hitler wasn’t a particularly good person. Both, while technically true, don’t even begin to cover the extent of how awful each is/was.
The Last Airbender is a movie based off the classic kids tv show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Now while the show is arguably one of the best pieces of television ever made, the movie falls on the opposite side of the spectrum. Both follow Aang, a young boy living in an eastern inspired fantasy world filled with “benders,” or people who can manipulate one of the four elements. However, Aang is the only person able to bend all four elements, and is called the Avatar. It’s his job to stop the fire nation from conquering the world. The tv show handles this plot wonderfully, while the movie messes it up and is consequently very confusing.
This may sound like an exaggeration, but there is not a single aspect of this movie that’s good. The acting is awful. The cgi is terrible. The script and writing is so bad it’s not even fun to laugh at. The editing is atrocious. The names from the show are all mispronounced. The action is laughable from how bad it is. The casting for the most part is terrible (and kind of racist?) The only slightly good aspect is Dev Patel’s Zuko, and he actually feels well cast in the role. The rest of the cast however feels incredibly wrong. In the show, the various elemental nations were inspired by real life Asian cultures. For example, Airbenders were based off Tibetan Monks while waterbenders were based off of the Inuit people. In the show, everybody is white, and it just feels completely wrong. Ironically though, the bad guys are still diverse.
It’s not all bad however, as The Last Airbender makes one ask questions. Such as, “they thought they were going to three movies like this?!” Or “what could I have done for two hours instead of watching this piece of junk?” Overall, spare yourself from this terrible experience. Watch the animated tv show instead, it’s amazing. Just please, for the love of all things good in this world, skip the movie.