The much anticipated M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender! This movie is a a live action version of the famed cartoon starring the characters the children and adults (me) have come to love over the past few years! All the characters are played in this film such as Aang (Noah Ringer), Prince Suko (Dev Patel; Slumdog Millionaire), Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Jackson Rathbone (Twilight) as "Sokka"
First I would Like to talk about the things I liked in the film. In this movie the special effects were great! Even though I didnt pay the extra bucks for the 3-D feature I thought the Special FX hit close to the bar that I hoped for. As well as the Kung-Fu aspect of bending presented in the cartoon. I also liked that they stuck to the actual storyline of the cartoon as well. If you are a fan you will love seeing so many different things in live action film such as a fully digital Appa! Yipp Yipp!!!
However that also connects to the things that I hated about the film. Now I'm not going to say what every other movie reviewer is gonna say "The racial casting is not accurate" The only casting that I fully disagree with was Monk Gyatso played by Damon Gupton. Under no circumstances should that role have been played by a Black Man (Im black so dont trip!) and the lady by the name of Katharine Houghton that played "Gran-Gran" played her role so horribly that it was just awkward like high school theatre. I actually looked towards the illuminated EXIT sign twice! I digress. The only real problem I had with the film is that it rushed through the Book of Water so fast that you could barely connect to the characters in the movie. I hate that it rushed through the plot and next thing you know we are at the final battle! HUGE MISTAKE! The whole story is based around the character building of Aang, Katara, and Sokka! Without a connection to at least these three all is lost with the storyline. In addition to that the comedy aspect and light hearted feeling from Aang is completely removed from the character.
I must I was in the crowd that was ecstatic to see this since that 1st amazing trailer and I was left rather disappointed with M. Night. I went expecting a 3 hour epic live action film of a great animated story and left with a hour and a half long fast forwarded feature.
if you love the cartoon I still say go see the movie just to see the action and your favorite characters in action but dont expect to be blasted away with awesomeness!
I give it a "DAMN YOU M. NIGHT! THIS WAS SUCH A GREAT OPPURTUNITY MISSED FOR US ALL" rating!!!
PS- The ending was a good ending for fans! It continues!!!
I agree about not building a character relationship. I started watching the cartoon a few weeks before the movie came out so I had an idea of what to expect. If i had not watched the cartoon before hand I would have no idea what was going on in the film relation with the characters.
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