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pennie_dreadful) wrote2010-07-06 05:13 pm
The Last Airbender--review
God what a shitload of a film. Awkward, childish dialogue, practically no comic relief, and the three main characters were the only white people in the film. I was giving Shaymalan the benefit of the doubt on that last issue, and hoping that the casting choices were made because the actors were absolutely perfect for the roles, but what the fuck? Noah whats-his-name as Aang, I will admit, was a good choice, and in the previews he actually looked a little racially ambiguous to me. And in the carton Aang is significantly lighter skinned than any of the other chracteres. But the actors playing Katara and especially Sokka...! SURELY there were Asians who auditioned for those parts who were better actors than them, especially Jackson Rathbone. Just...ugh. He has no sense of comic timing whatsoever, and that's basically the purpose of his character, to be the comic relief. And then there was the huge juxtaposition of having every other person in their village Asian, even their grandmother! And once I realized he was the same guy who played Jasper in Twilight, I couldn't stop seeing him as that character.
But now that I've thought it over a bit more, I think the biggest crime MNS is guilty of is sucking the film completely dry of the humor that was one of the trademarks of the cartoon. Not only Sokka, but Uncle Iroh too, and Aang had this goofy aspect to his personality. He had his dark moments when he felt guitly for abandoning the world and responsible for the death of his people, but he was still just a kid, albeit one with amazing powers, and he acted like one for the most part.
The whole thing was just a huge fail on every level imaginable, except for special effects. The special effects were fucking awesome. But clearly, fucking awesome special effects do not a good film make. At least I didn't spend the extra money to see it in 3D. Then I really would be pissed.
Don't even get me started
There aren't enough words to describe how ticked I was at the casting for Sokka and Katara. I really wasn't that thrilled with casting for Aang but the Water Tribe siblings had me seeing red. For anyone that has seen the series, it was as clear as the nose on my face that the people of the Water Tribes were modeled after the Inuits/Eskimos. Hell, both Sokka and Katara were my color! How hard would it have been to find some medium to dark-skinned kids to play these parts? Slap some blue contacts in their eyes and viola! To run my blood pressure up even more, is the fact that M. Night came into Avatar because his daughter wanted to be Katara for Halloween. Bastard. I keep trying to tell myself that it could've been much worse, seeing as that Jesse McCartney was originally slated to play Prince Zuko.
I'm also pissed that the Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors were completely cut from the movie, despite being promoted earlier on. I get that it was impossible to include every single thing from the first season into a 90 minute film, but the Kyoshi Warriors were pretty damn important. Suki was, hands down, one of the baddest non-benders in the damn series besides Mai and Ty Lee. Her fighting skills were top notch and she even showed Sokka a thing or two about what it is to be a "true" warrior. Supposedly they will make an appearance in the second film (it pains me to even type that btw).
And WTF was it with pronunciations of Aang, Iroh and Sokka? According to a friend of mine, M. Night wanted the pronunciations more "authentically Asian" so he consulted a Linguist on how to pronounce the names. So let me get this straight; it's all right to cast 2 lily-white kids to play characters of obvious Inuit/Eskimo nature but, heaven forbid, if the language isn't authentic? Pffffft, whatever Shya-malan-ma-ding-dong....whatever.
But what really grinds my gears is the blatant character assassination that M. Night committed. Why just play upon the angsty side of Aang? Yes, Aang had his moments of angst but at the center of his being, he was a fun-loving boy at heart. No matter how bad things were, Aang always found a reason to make room for play, which made for some frustrating times for Sokka and Katara. Hell, it was one of main reasons why Katara was eventually able to surpass Aang in Waterbending and become his instructor. Katara took her lessons to heart, Aang pretty much goofed off. Aang was also the perfect definition of your "Reluctant Hero". Being the Avatar was not a job he wanted nor desired. His beliefs and his Airbending nature oftentimes did him more harm than good. He did his best to shy from confrontation and never went looking for fights, which was kinda hard seeing as that he was Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the Fire Nation. I'm not even going to go into how Sokka was portrayed as a humorless dolt and how Katara looked like she was on the verge of tears (at least from what I've seen in trailers and stills).
There are many other things I can rant about but there aren't enough hours in the day and I think I've taken up enough space just ranting about the above comments. You know a film has got to be bad if I'm willing to agree with the likes of Roger Ebert. And to think, M. Night is already talking to the press about the second installment and how it's going to be darker. Personally, if someone else were writing the screenplay and directing, I'd be more inclined to watch. But as long a Shya-malan-ma-ding-dong is at the helm, it's just going to be another film of crapola. Yippee!
Re: Don't even get me started
I'm not even gonna bother seeing the next films if MNS is still making them. No fucking way.
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And he's going to do a sequel?! We should start a campaign, if one hasn't started already. >:(
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