The path was set for writer/director M. Night Shyamalan to return to glory with his adaptation of the hit animated Nickeloden television series, The final Airbender. The film is meant to be the firstly of a potential trilogy of films around the illusion epic, which mixed anime action with Eastern doctrine.
I am very familiar with the Avatar: The final Airbender cartoon serial – and with M. Night doing something different by accepting a big-budget film that wasn not based on one of his original ideas, I was absolute interested and hopeful that this coulded his career (which has been on something of a downwardly spiral in recent years).
And so much for that hope. The final Airbender is a sickly constructed film with no sense of plot, part or emotion – and aside from the visuals, there are bittie to no redeeming qualities in that wasted opportunity of a fantastic property, which lived ripe for a film version.
The film (which stars Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone and Dev Patel) recites the main story arc of the first of three seasons (or “books,” as they are known by fans) of the American cartoon, Avatar: The lastly Airbender (see our review of Avatar: The final Airbender Book 1 Collector’s Edition). In a unearthly universe divided into four cultures, each Nation has a couple of people who have the ability to master the art of bending their several elements: Air, Water, Earth and Fire. “The Avatar” is the one human in this universe who is able to master all four components – and this special person is reincarnated every coevals into a member of one of the four cultures, following a specified cycle. It is the Avatar, the incarnation of the universe’s spirits, who asserts peace and balance in the universe. The story gets with the discovery of Aang, who is quickly revealed to comprise the final of his people, the Air Nomads (hence the title, final Airbender). The evil Fire Nation ate the Air Nomads a century prior in hopes of breaching the cycle and preventing the next Avatar from beingness born. This would pave the way for the Fire Nation’s attempts to accept over the universe. Needless to say, as members of the Fire Nation learn of Aang’s being, they want him and set out in hot following. Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), the exiled son of the Fire Nation rule, needs to capture the Avatar to regain his award and rightful place within the Fire Nation kingdom.
This easy summary of the story behind The final Airbender is divided with the audience, and while Shyamalan promised the film aspirant true to the source, it is not.
The film admits a heavy load of shot-for-shot recreations of set art object moments from the cartoon series, as well as aims and locations lifted from memorable parts of the first season of the demo (just to claim it’s “true” to the source). The filmmakers do not use any of this borrowed material correctly. Much of what’s included is there for the sole reason of filling in for the audience important boards and moments from the cartoon – however, in the film, these elements end up serving no purpose and throw the direction off to the point where many boards are completely meaningless and borderline incomprehensible. For example: including a six-legged, beaver-tailed flying CGI bison named Appa in the film doesn not automatically make it true to the source material – it’s how we feel around the big lovable creature that matters. The cartoon was able to solicit love for its big flying bison – the film, not so much. The story Shyamalan was trying to tell is meant to be that of an epic journey of discovery and companionship (with healthy doses of action and comedy), all packaged with a lot of heart. And this is where Shyamalan fails most of all. There are no reasons to get attached to any of the “characters” in The final Airbender and even less reason to care around what happens to them. Most of the key character-defining moments or story arcs from the cartoon are not even shown in the film, but are instead told through an awkward overload of exposition. As a result, we couldn’t care less around Appa (or other characters) based on the way they are handled. Most of the “borrowed” boards included in the film have no reason to be there (other than to be able to say they are from the cartoon) – and worse, how the characters get from one location to the next as they journey across the universe is never shown, removing the actual sense of journey that defines the tale.
For a film based in universe full of beautiful scenery and unique locales, we are not shown much of anything. We are given a bunch of set pieces constructed to replicate memorable visuals from the Airbender cartoon, but again, there is no reason to care around them and more often than not, there is no reason for many of these boards to even be in the film. The set pieces should have expanded upon the story (which was lacking) and heightened the visual meaning of the film, but totally fail in that endeavor. Our three protagonists, Aang, along with his Southern Water Tribe friends, Sokka and Katara, are mere empty shells of the characters the film hints at them being – and there is no way the audience is able to become attached to them. The characters aren’t even shown getting attached to each other, as we’re not treated to much in the way of development between them. Aang is supposed to be the young, innocent, fun-loving kid who needs to learn to take on the responsibilities of becoming the Avatar, but he is replaced with a character containing no personality whatsoever.
Aside from the horrible dialogue, acting and cinematography (mostly in the first half), M. Night Shyamalan stripped away what made any of characters special or charming. The introduction to the film and its characters is weak and how they introduce Aang as the Avatar to the rest of the universe is uneventful. Most of the download film lacked excitement and those few times there is a hint at seeing something cool or special, it’s just another letdown – especially when it comes to the action sequences, which could have become the film’s defining trait. Shyamalan and Paramount Pictures tried to cover the story arc of a full season of the Airbender cartoon in around ninety minutes of film. With this cast and the special effects, it’s hard to fathom that they spent $150 million dollars making it. There is an hour of missing film out there somewhere, one that explains these characters and their story in full. I just know it.
What we do get are multiple occasions where instead of going with the characters, building their relationships and giving us something we can attach to, instead we’re just thrown into new boards in completely different locales, with either a subtitle explaining to us where we are now, and/or narration saying a certain amount of time has passed and that stuff has happened. Then, before we experience much of anything with the characters we’re supposed to be attached to, in the new locale we’ve been thrown into, we’re quickly thrown into another poorly set up scene – which quickly takes us to yet another location/locale without any purpose or sense of direction.
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The hardest part around accepting The final Airbender for what it is (not), is that there are no redeeming qualities to it. From the trailers and other marketing, you’d expect at least the action sequences and special effects involved would provide some entertainment – and while there are some cool action bits, even that aspect of the film falls short. During the few boards involving hand-to-hand combat, in a film heavily focused on martial arts styles (each corresponding to a different bending ability), most of the time the fight boards didn’t come off as cool or enjoyable. And in boards where they could have really showcased wildly entertaining bending fights, they instead opted to repeatedly show a lengthy martial arts dance routine, just to employ one basic bending assault – whereas in the cartoon series, there were many intense action boards where each punch and kick from Prince Zuko would launch fireballs at his opponent.
There is one bright spot in the film: Fan-favorite character Uncle Iroh (Shaun Toub) is the standout character of the film, cool and lovable as he was in the cartoon. Uncle Iroh is Prince Zuko’s mentor and while being a calm and often comedic character, he is a powerful Firebender, good-natured in contrast to the ill-tempered young Zuko. Unfortunately for moviegoers and fans of the cartoon, The final Airbender does almost everything wrong and it certainly isn’t helped by the tacked-on 3D, which doesn’t add much to the film (at best) and saddles it with muted colors and flat depth (at worst). This is a film unintentionally aimed strictly at children and the youngest segment of the cartoon’s fanbase. If your kids love flashy things and big animals, then they’ll probably like this – unless they start trying to understand the plot. In my opinion, you’d be better off taking them to see fireworks this weekend – it will probably be more entertaining.
In the end, I just hope this film doesn’t hurt people’s interest in watching the amazing cartoon series which spawned it. That would truly be unforgivable.
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