The Last Airbender Movie Review

Nickelodeon Studios has made a handful of movies that were little more than extra episodes of their successful TV shows with a much bigger budget. There are exceptions, of course. Rango for example, was quite good and had nothing to do with the studio's television programs. Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of their more successful and compelling shows that featured an interesting blend of Anime and American cartoon styles. It was character and plot driven, unlike most of their shows which are physical comedy driven. Nickelodeon made a bad move when they thought they needed to make a live-action summary of Avatar: The Last Airbender, then they made another bad move by having M. Night Shyamalan direct it.

The world is divided into four kingdoms, each represented by the elements they harness, and peace has lasted throughout the realms of Water, Air, Earth, and Fire under the supervision of the Avatar, a link to the spirit world and the only being capable of mastering the use of all four elements. When young Avatar Aang (Noah Ringer) disappears, the Fire Nation launches an attack, planning world domination. 100 years pass and Fire Nation has eradicated the Air Nomads and continues to conquer and imprison anyone with the elemental “bending” abilities in the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom. Then young siblings Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) of the Southern Water Tribe find a boy trapped beneath the ice outside their village. Upon rescuing him, he reveals himself to be Aang, the Avatar and last of the Airbenders. Swearing to protect the Avatar, Katara and Sokka journey with him to the Northern Water Tribe to master Waterbending, and eventually fulfill his destiny of restoring peace to the world. But as they go, they must evade prince Zuko (Dev Patel), the exiled son of Lord Ozai, and Fire Nation military leaders.

Nickelodeon had to change the title of the movie to The Last Airbender (2010) so as not to get it confused with James Camron's Avatar movie which came out a few months earlier. I don't understand the reasoning to make this movie. The material was born to be Anime; it needs to be animated. The TV series used bright colors and “clear line” animation style which is used by animation masters and is a pleasure to observe. In contrast, take the X-Men movies for example; a lot of visual changes had to be made, costuming in particular. A lot of the visuals in X-Men looked good in comic books but would look silly in live-action. But The Last Airbender didn't make the necessary changes to keep it from looking silly. The colors seemed out of place and unreal, the costumes looked rather eccentric, and the elemental bending looked silly in a live-action context.

Another problem with The Last Airbender is the pacing. It seems that Shyamalan tried to condense a whole season of half hour episodes into one two-hour movie. Everything seemed incredibly rushed and there wasn't enough time granted to each of the characters to develop them into people we should care about. There were even moments that were described to us in narration rather than shown us. For example, we don't get to see our heroes arrive at the Northern Water Tribe. We're just told through Katara's narration that they got there and that Sokka hit it off with the princess. It would have been nice to see why they hit it off and how they developed a relationship. But, no, we simply see a new character show up from out of nowhere and suddenly has a long standing relationship with a main character we've had since the beginning of the movie. They just tried to get too much in too short a span of time, and it made the movie seem sloppy and rushed.

Given how rushed everything was, it left little time for meaningful dialogue. There was some dialogue here and there that developed the unique setting, but not much else. Even the way the film works so hard to develop the plot is scarcely left enough time to dramatize the characters. One of the more interesting characters is Prince Zuko; he has a tragic history and complex motives. But his dialogue in The Last Airbender was forced and simplistic. Which is a shame since Dev Patel is a really good actor. He was phenomenal in Slumdog Millionaire; he and the rest of the cast had such dry, uninspired material to work with that everyone's acting seemed impeded.

The Last Airbender was completely uncalled for. What little story they crammed into the movie was already done. This movie wasn't even a decent “readers digest version” of the series. Why make this movie? It did nothing new, and did lousy job recreating what was already done. I imagine the only ones who would appreciate The Last Airbender are young fans of the series who want to see more familiar images. I did appreciate the reluctant hero struggling with his responsibilities, but the sparse good qualities are completely overshadowed by the bad ones. DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE, though I do strongly recommend watching the TV series itself; it's very good.

What's your favorite Nickelodeon movie? Why do you like it so much? Comment below and tell me why!

Cowboys & Aliens Movie Review

Here is yet another genre blending story. I’ve often wondered why this sort of thing has not happened before. When we get an alien invasion movie it’s more often than not set in the present or sometimes in the future. Why is it that no one thought to have aliens invade in a historical setting before Cowboys & Aliens (2011)?

It’s 1873 in the Arizona Territory, and a stranger (Daniel Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint of his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the population of Absolution doesn’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been.

As the title suggests, Cowboys & Aliens combines two genres that are at odds with one another; Western and Sci-fi. It’s really a pretty good western movie. It’s full of cowboys, Apaches, horses, stagecoach robbers, a preacher, a bartender named Doc (Sam Rockwell), a tyrannical rancher and his worthless son (Paul Dano), bandits, an ancient Indian cure for amnesia, beautiful women (including Abigail Spencer), a brave kid with a spyglass (Noah Ringer), and a plucky dog that follows the good guys for miles and miles though the desert. There’s racism and mistrust that runs rampant. All these mistrusting groups need to learn to overcome their differences as they fall under attack by otherworldly forces. Then the sci-fi is blended in with aliens, spaceships, bug-eyed monsters, a laser blasting wrist weapon, and alien abductions. The juxtaposition of these two genres makes for an interesting story; and the title tells you exactly what the movie consists of.

Cowboys & Aliens makes a pretty good western without the aliens. It’s got all the classic elements of a good western. But alas, we’re told that the western genre is dead. I don’t agree. The last kid-focused western was Rango, and that was quite good. Other recent westerns that I can think of include True Grit and 3:10 to Yuma and those were also really good. I suppose there hasn’t been enough action movies set in the old west that were box office successes to make Hollywood want to invest in a genre that hasn’t been very popular since the late 1960’s. But do we really need to throw in sci-fi elements to get people to watch a western?

The cast in Cowboys & Aliens was phenomenal! It had a large cast that had high acting standards. Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig were made for roles like these. And director Jon Favreau actually gave the characters something to do rather than simply place them in front of special effects-laden backdrops. The characters are developed enough for us to care about them.

For all the fun special effects, characters, and action the story is pretty choppy and convoluted. The Apaches and marauders were a bit too eager join forces to help fight the aliens. Most of the scenes could probably have been done in any order rather than have an inevitable progression from one to the other. There’s also the illogical sci-fi trope that bestial monster aliens somehow are intelligent enough to build and fly spaceships. I choose to forgive this since most other aspects of this film were very well done. I did appreciate the fact that the aliens are never actually called “aliens.” That word was not in the old west vernacular.

With a title like Cowboys & Aliens we’re promised an exciting genre mash-up. This movie could have taken itself much too seriously to be any good, and yes there were times that it did take itself too seriously. Cowboys & Aliens is something like firing an old six-shooter. The aim is good, the ammo is plentiful, but there are times the just misfires. Is it good? Yeah, it’s okay. But it’s more fun than it is good. It’s worth seeing because of the unique blend of old western action coupled with an alien invasion. I’m still on the fence over whether or not this is worth owning a copy. I’d probably want to see it once more, but likely no more than that. It’s definitely worth renting, though.

What's another common character type that would be fun to pit against aliens? Ghosts? Detectives? What do you think might be a fun genre mash-up? Comment below and tell me about it!